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ENGLAND 



AS SEEN BY AN AMERICAN BANKER 



NOTES OF A PEDESTRIAN TOUR 




BOSTON 
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 

FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS 



THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 






Copyright, 1885, 
By D. LOTHROP & CO. 



To THE 

lEttglfsjj People, 

IN HALL AND COTTAGE, IN CITY OR COUNTRY, 
WHO SO CHEERFULLY RESPONDED TO ALL MY INQUIRIES; 

And to 

iWg Eineltegcar^to Son, 

the companion of my travels, 

VHOSE FAMILIAR PRESENCE MADE ALL LANDS HOME TO ME, 
THIS WORK IS CORDIALLY INSCRIBED. 



ENGLAND AS SEEN BY AN 
AMERICAN BANKER. 



WALKING AS A FINE ART. 

Our notes on this point shall be English notes, 
and our walks in view shall be walks in England 
in the spring-time. And first, what of the cli- 
mate then and there? I may have been the 
luckiest of men, but I found it the loveliest im- 
aginable. Now I am not going to devote pages 
to descriptions of the varying aspects of Eng- 
lish skies and clouds in spring, but I simply note 
the fact that I found rural England in April and 
May a perfect paradise in regard to what I may 
term a walking climate. There was little rain ; 
or, at any rate, not rain enough to interfere the 
slightest with my walking. There was no heat, 
no cold, no scorching suns, no biting winds. 

I repeat only what many other pedestrians have 
said when I say that there was something in the 
atmosphere of the island that was more inspirit- 
ing, — more stimulating to out-of-door travelling, 



2 THE WALKER'S INDEPENDENCE. 

than I have noticed elsewhere. I am not a great 
walker ; yet I often made my thirty miles a day 
in England with ease, without the slightest over- 
weariness. 

The glory of the walker is his independence, his 
perfect freedom, and abandon. He can go any- 
where, stop anywhere, and do as he pleases. He 
can make closer observation, more completely 
"do" a place, and altogether become better ac- 
quainted with countries, cities, or towns, by walk- 
ing through them, than by seeing them in any 
other way. 

I to-day count no places visited by me in Eng- 
land that I did not walk into, walk through, and 
walk out of; and, in these rambling notes, I have 
only fully written of places that I so visited. 

In my many long and most interesting pedes- 
trian excursions in lovely rural England, I often 
found myself travelling broad highways that had 
been laid out by the Romans in the days when 
they held sway from the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean to the Pictish wall in ancient Britain 
The Romans built five great arterial routes across 
Europe. I came upon one of these which crossed 
the channel to Richborough, and, passing onward 
[f°m London to York, is now known as the Wat- 
}ing Street Road ; and I walked many a mile over 
its well macadamized and perfectly straight bed 

Over these Roman roads in the old days, travel 



BRIGSTOCK. 3 

not only for business, but for health and pleasure, 
coursed as it does to-day ; and then, as now, there 
was no lack of commodious carriages, and com- 
fortable inns or taverns. 

As dead as possible are some of the rural Eng- 
lish villages through which I passed, and the air 
I of dreamy quietude that hung over them impressed 
me most forcibly. Lords, squires, and parsons 
; rule over their population ; and these servile vil- 
lagers hardly dare speak, think, or act, without 
finding out, in advance, the will and wishes of the 
ruling magnates named. 

I present, as a typical illustration of the village 
life I have in mind, — a sort of life with which I 
made close acquaintance, — Brigstock, a place five 
miles away from any railway-station, and under 
the rule of three noblemen, who own all the land 
in the village and thereabouts, and who will not 
sell a yard of the same for love or gold. Com- 
mons were once numerous in Brigstock, but these 
great landed proprietors have gradually stolen 
them all. The laborers living here are enduring 
a sort of hand-to-mouth existence. When they 
are old and helpless, they go to the "union." 

I have entered the cottages of such villagers, 
have sat by their hearth-stones, and talked over 
with them their way of life and prospects. I have 
found them servile, stupid, without hope or ambi- 
tion, and living upon the plainest fare amid the 



4 WALKING THOUGHTS. 

plainest surroundings. Countries beyond the sea, 
of which they had faintly heard, seem immensely 
far away to them ; and emigration to such was a 
thought that seldom entered their minds. 

* 

I shall never forget the long stretch across 
country which I took in an early walk from the 
suburbs of London to ancient Oxford, nor how 
that city dawned upon me, for the first time, as I 
entered it on foot. Nor am I willing to allow that 
my walk from Liverpool to Chester and into Lon- 
don was not a sufficient compensation for a voyage 
across the north Atlantic. 

On a bright May morning I have tramped to 
Abbotsford, visited fair Melrose Abbey, and, fol- 
lowing the winding Tweed, stood by the grave of 
Scott in Dryburgh Abbey. I have walked up and 
down and across the lake district of England, 
pausing at every point of particular interest, and 
shall never forget my sensations, as, at the close of 
a spring day, I entered the old graveyard at Gras- 
mere, and stood by the grave of Wordsworth and 
Hartley Coleridge; or my first view of the home 
of Southey, and the mountains round about it; or 
of the homes and haunts of poets and scholars, ! 
who had made the lake district their abiding 
places; or my entry into old Coventry, over the 
wry bridge where Tennyson stood and saw the 
three tall spires, and wove again the legend of 



BUTTON-HOLING A SCOTCHMAN 5 

Godiva ; or my rambles over the Cheviot Hills 
of Scotland, among the peaks of Derbyshire, and 
over the moorlands about the home of Charlotte 
Bronte. But there is no end to this. I must cut 
I the thread, leaving it hanging on this little sug- 
gestive incident in pedestrianism. 

I was among the hills about Melrose when I 
found myself opposite an old land-worker's cot- 
tage, the door of which stood invitingly open ; and, 
I upon invitation, I entered. The old man of the 
cottage had become too infirm for work, but he 
was by no means too infirm to talk. And nothing 
seemed to please him more than an opportunity to 
" run on " with me, in a chat about matters and 
• things round about him, and about the times long 
past. I had been traversing the Bermecide road, 
that leads from the grave of Scott in Dryburgh' 
Abbey to Abbotsford, — the very road over which 
the long procession passed that followed the poet's 
remains to their burial. The old man fired up 
when I spoke of that remarkable funeral, and said 
he remembered it well. He had never seen so 
large an one before or since. He gave me the 
number of carriages, and said the procession was 
surely a mile long. I have read again since then 
— read for the twentieth time — Lockhart's touch- 
ing account of those obsequies ; and Lockhart tells 
how the procession of "a mile in length," made 
up of distinguished representatives from almost 



6 BOOKS OF TRAVEL. 

every Christian land, wound its way over those 
Cheviot Hills, among which I was wandering. A 
half-hour after I reached the highest point of the 
funeral route, — the very spot which had been a fa- 
vorite point of view of Sir Walter's, and the point | 
where on that sad day, says Lockhart, the long; 
procession almost involuntarily halted, to gaze afar 
over the valley of the Tweed, and upon a distant 
view of the towers and battlements of Abbotsford. 

"England Within and Without," by the schol- 
arly Richard Grant White, is a pleasant volume of, 
essays; but the pedestrian in England need not.: 
feel obliged to carry it in his pocket as a guide- 1 
book. When home again in his study, the re- 
turned traveller may be glad to turn over White's 
pages, if he is a judicious skipper, to see what the! 
author has said about places now familiar to his 
eyes and to his thoughts. I believe, with Mr. 
Hawthorne, that one only really enjoys books of* 
travels that lead him again to places he has 
11 done" for himself. 

I once hunted long for a volume by that learned,| 
and good man, Elihu Burritt, which had attracted i 
my attention by a most alluring title, — "A Walk; 
from Land's End to John O'Groat's." It has not 
been republished here ; and, on reading it, I foundl 
why no American publisher has had the couragi 
to tackle it. The frontispiece is a picture of the 
venerable author as he walked that long walk.i 



ENGLISH PEDESTRIANISM. / 

His tall, thin form is crowned with a "high hat ; " 
he wears a long-skirted black coat, and carries a 
large black carpet-bag and cane. Verily some 
Rev. Jonathan Edwards of a former generation 
(going forth on an exchange. Just one thousand 
and nine miles is his walk. It gave me nothing. 

In wandering over the beautiful highways and 
i byways of England, where every thing was new 
and strange to me, and where my entire acquaint- 
ance with roads and routes was confined to the 
knowledge I had previously gathered from maps, 
it may readily be surmised that I had to do very 
■much in the matter of inquiring the way as I 
^passed along. And, as I asked my way from city 
1& city, and from town to town, two things sur- 
prised me very much. One was the amount of 
ignorance that prevailed among otherwise intelli- 
gent English people regarding the highway routes 
which were out of their every-day circle of observa- 
:ion ; and the other was, that a people having the 
-eputation of possessing out-of-door habits, and of 
1 Deing, in particular, great walkers, should evince so 
1 nuch surprise at seeing me planning to walk across 
j country to some point twenty or thirty miles away. 

Astonishment over this latter idea would some- 

1 imes so fully take possession of the staring man 

jvhom I was interrogating about the roads, that 

^ie would seem to forget my questions, or allow 

hem to be obscured in his mind by the wonder 



8 ENGLISH PEDESTRIANISM. 

that was absorbing him. Why, in the name of 
common sense, should a gentleman want to tramp 
all the way to the town or city so distant, when, 
for a shilling or two, he could fly there by rail in 
an hour or less ? So, instead of getting the infor- 
mation I asked for, I would often be directed most 
persistently to the nearest station on the railway. 

I had always heard much in praise of the rugged 
and vigorous out-of-door habits of the young men 
of England. But my ideas in this regard received| 
rather a set-back when I studied the habits, and 
observed the physiques, of English students at the 
famous school towns and university towns. I 
remember being somewhat astonished when I was; 
starting out one morning to walk from Rugby to 
London, to find that none of the crowd of ratheil 
delicate-looking boys — "spindle-shanks," Granl 
White has the temerity to call them — who were 
walking about the town, or gliding over its streets 
on bicycles or tricycles, seemed to know mucr, 
about the highway that would take them to Lon 
don ; and this famous Tom Brown school towr 
is, if I remember correctly, only about sevent} 
miles from the mighty metropolis of England* 
over highways the finest and pleasantest in the 
world. These young men were very much astonj 
ished to hear me talk of walking to London 
When I told them I should think some of then 
would like such a pleasant ramble in such a mag, 



GUIDE-POSTS. 9 

nificent walking climate as they were blessed with, 
1! found no hearty response. 

It did not seem to me that the boys at Rugby, 
he boys I saw at Eton, Harrow, Oxford, and other 
educational towns in England, where young men 
\nd boys most do congregate, and those whom I 
jaet in London, home in vast swarms for the holi- 
days, often dressed in a most amusingly antique, 
dgh-hatted, and wide-collared style, were as 
I ruddy and white, and strong on their legs," as 
American boys of the same age and class. 
! And my observation of the boys of England of 
n older growth, both in town and country, in all 
arts of the kingdom, also led me to the conclu- 
'ion that the boasted superior muscularity of 
englishmen, as compared with their cousins in the 
Jnited States, did not exist. But, returning to 
tie subject of finding one's way over the splendid 
Dads of England, I note that I found the country 
enerously supplied with guide-posts of a some- 
rhat peculiar character. They stood trim and 
rect, wherever diverging roads presented them- 
' elves, well lettered with the names of the towns, 
tties, and hamlets not far on the roads along 
'hich their index fingers pointed. Yet, singularly 
nough, I do not remember to have seen a single 
uide-post in all my wanderings in England which 
ore upon its boards any figures showing the dis- 
inces to any of the places to which the hands 



I0 FAMILIAR NAMES. 

upon the boards pointed,— or, I might more prop- 
erly say, to which the boards themselves pointed ; 
for they have a general style in England of mak- 
ing their guide-post boards with one end shaped 
into the form of a hand, with the index finger 
pointed towards the town to which they direct. 

I have never seen guide-boards of this fashion 
in America; but, in other respects, they were 
precisely like those seen in our own country. 
And as I often lingered by the roadside, and stud- 
ied the various names that appeared on these my 
roadway guides, their familiar appearance would, 
for a moment, make me think I was once more 
wandering among the hills and valleys of Massa- 
chusetts or New Hampshire. Yet would this illu- 
sion be quickly dispelled, when I read upon these 
guide-boards such names as Banbury Cross, Olney, 
Lichfield, Stoke Pogis, Eton, Harrow, Slough, Lon- 
don, etc., — names that had all my life been famil- 
iar to me in connection with nursery ballads, 
English biography, and English classic prose and 
poetry, but which were now no longer mere names, 
but actual places, through which I was wending 
my way, or upon which I was gazing from some 
gentle rise in the road which gave me a chance to 
cast my eyes afar over the lovely English country 
about me. It sometimes seemed to me as if 
the towns, villages, and hamlets were so closely 
crowded together in England, — took up, individu- 



A ROUND-HOUSE. II 

ally, so small a space, — that I was out of one local- 
ity and into another before I had time to find out 
the names of the various precincts through which 
I was wandering. 

In walking from Barnet to Oxford, — a charm- 
ing cross-country ramble over a route which I 
have set down in my note-book as being as pleas- 
ant as any I have ever travelled, — I made my 
first acquaintance with that genuine old-fashioned 
tramp-house, an English round-house. 

Its shape, location, and general character were 
i perfect poser to me ; and I came at once to a 
ialt, for the purpose of making an immediate 
nvestigation. 

A round-house is, in plain old English, a sort 
)f prison in use by the nightly watch to secure 
Irunken and disorderly prisoners till they can be 
)rought before a magistrate, and fined, or sent to 
ail. An English gentleman, driving a horse and 
;ig slowly up the hill, reading, as his horse walked, 
'The London Daily Times," which he had just pro- 
ured at the station where the morning train from 
.ondon had a moment before halted, paused in his 
eading, to tell me that the curious little building 

was staring at was an English round-house. 

They may not always be of the shape of the 
ne I am describing. This was perfectly round, 
ith a diameter at the base of about a dozen feet. 
t was only of one story, and contained but one 



I2 A ROUND-HOUSE. 

room, which occupied the entire space within its 
walls, which tapered till they came to a point per- 
haps fifteen feet from the ground. It was made of 
brick, and had one door, and two little, well-secured 
windows. The accommodations for the stragglers 
and tramps who might be thrust within its walls 
to spend the night were of the rudest and most 
uncomfortable character. 

I have been thus particular in describing this 
specimen of an old English tramp-house for two 
reasons. One is, that it is an institution which 
my readers may not, in all probability, ever have 
seen, and may never see, although frequent refer- 
ences to it may be found in English classic prose 
and poetry ; and the other, because in our New 
England, within a few years past, tramp-houses, 
that are in many points close imitations of the 
obsolete and barbarous old round-house of Eng- 
land, have been set up in many towns to meet the 
exigencies arising under the administration of our 
modern over-severe tramp laws. 

The round-houses of England, like those public 
instruments of torture the stocks, which an old 
citizen of Bedford, England, told me he could well 
remember seeing in use in John Bunyan's town, 
have become a thing of the past. 

While talking with a bent and grizzled old Eng- 
lish cobbler, who described himself as a man who 
had fourteen children, — seven of a sort; that is, 






ANCIENT FOOT-PATHS. 1 3 



seven boys and seven girls, — who all considered 

him an old fool, he told me the following story 

! of an old English round-house : A poor drunken 

man, in his after-dark reelings, staggered up 

; against a round-house, and began to feel his way 

along its brick sides. And this he kept on doing 

for a very, very long time, going around and 

1 around, feeling his way by the bricks, muttering 

to himself that it was the longest wall he ever 

saw in his life. 

Ancient rights of way, or supposed rights of 
■ way, over fields and grazing lands, across lawns 
and baronial parks, are institutions of which I had 
often read in English history, song, and story ; so 
that I felt myself familiar with these long-trodden 
short cuts and by-ways before I had planted my 
I feet on English soil, and traversed these old paths 
myself. Yet, after all, I found that I had had lit- 
( tie idea of the extent of the ramifications of this 
' English by-path system till I made a close per- 
sonal acquaintance with rural England. Neither 
I had I had much idea of the nature of the tenure 
1 which the public held on many of these old foot- 
' paths across lots, nor of the bitter warfare about 
I them being waged between nobles and peasants, 
great landed proprietors, and the towns-people at 
large. 

One of my earliest acquaintances with this in- 
ternecine path-war was made during my first pro- 



1 4 ANCIENT FOOT-PA THS. 

tracted stay at an old English inn, rented by our 

landlord from the rich Earl of , who owned 

nearly the whole town. My nearest railway-station 
was two miles away by the public roads, and 
only a mile by w r ay of one of these old disputed 
paths across the parks of the earl. My landlord, 
a timid man, hardly dared to tell me of this short 
path ; yet the public was taking it, and I followed 
suit. Another ancient foot-path near us led right 
across the grand lawn in front of the earl's great 
mansion, and over this there was a contest brew- 
ing ; yet hind and tradesman, tramping cockney 
and tourist, mounted the stile, and walked the 
disputed path. 

There was less reason in former times for the 
nobleman to be jealous of these rights of way. 
But now that population has become more dense, 
and horrid shops and factories hem in and flood 
him with a tide of humanity with which he is not 
particularly enamored, he struggles to keep up a 
seclusion which is sadly interfered with by the old 
foot-paths. I have heard of what Englishmen 
termed an extraordinary scene in connection with 
a right of foot-way across a park, — Knole Park, 
the property of Lord Sackville. For sixty years 
the inhabitants of Seven Oaks had had unob- 
structed foot-path right over it, when the lord sud- 
denly closed it. An indignation meeting was 
held. At its close a vast crowd marched to the 






A RAMBLE BY THE WYE. 1 5 

entrance of the park, wrenched from the ground 
the posts and chains with which the path was ob- 
structed, and deposited them in front of the main 
entrance of the mansion, singing the while, " Rule 
Britannia" and the "National Anthem." 

* 

A ramble by the Wye is a pleasant memory. 
From the famous old " Peacock " inn, so near to 
stately Chatsworth, I had taken an early morning 
walk to Haddon Hall, and had been guided through 
that grand old baronial home by the young girl who 
carries the keys to the buildings, and makes her 
home in a rustic cottage which stands near them. 

This young guide was a courteous, attractive 
person. Mr. Wills, the successful London drama- 
tist, in describing to an interviewer his method of 
working up his last successful play, the " Docks of 
London," tells how the plot of this drama came into 
his mind as he followed the sweet-faced girl who 
was his guide in a ramble through the romantic 
old rooms and pleasant grounds of Haddon Hall. 

In the play in question, the scenery and action 
of which are all most realistic, he manages to in- 
troduce a splendid view of Haddon, and a garden- 
scene in its grounds, where the girl he met there 
is to be seen parting from her lover. After my 
tarry at Haddon, I turned to the banks of the 
Wye, and followed its windings for many a mile, 
i tramping through bushes, briers, and meadows, 
and over rocky paths. 



1 6 BY THE WYE. 

The scenery along my route was very lovely. 
My walk was a solitary one. From first to last I 
met not a single person, and had full opportunity 
to enjoy undisturbed the views of the beautiful 
surroundings amid which I was for the first time 
in my life sauntering. At times, particularly in 
the spring, and at the Easter season, the Wye is 
thronged with fishermen, who pay the lordly owner 
of the estate through which the Wye crosses a 
half crown a day for a license to cast their hooks. 
And these sportsmen may sometimes be seen 
ranged along the river in vast numbers. Occupy- 
ing every available point on its banks, they angle 
most persistently, though the results are apt to be 
very meagre. 

Said an English Wye fisherman : " I saw the 
windward bank studded with fishermen as thick as 
telegraph-poles as far as the eye could see. I 
walked on for a mile, and finding the outlook 
little better, I put up a cast of a blue upright an 
an iron gray, and set to work. I worked from 
twelve to four without hooking a fish. Still I 
plodded on through the meadows, till I found my- 
self far away from all fishing companions; and 
just at sunset I hooked my first fish. For a half- 
hour I had lively sport. The seventh fish was in 
my basket. I had just hooked another pounder 
under an old willow stump, when a man in velve- 
teen said, 'Allow me ; ' and took my landing net, 
and in a half minute had my fish out. 






gypsies. iy 

"'Avery nice fish,' said he; 'but let me look 
at your ticket/ he added. He eyed it, and re- 
marked, 'Just as I supposed. Your permit ends 
at the lower water, which ends where the wood 
ends. You are in the upper water which his Grace 
keeps for himself, and don't give leave for to no 
one whatsoever.' Although I explained I was a 
stranger, and had no idea that I was poaching, he 
smiled incredulously ; but, after further explana- 
tions, offered to show me my way back where I 
belonged." 

Wherever I wandered in rural England in the 
springtime, I found myself often falling in with 
the tents and vans of its touring gypsies. Moving 
through England, over its highways and by-ways, 
in something of a gypsy way myself, I very natu- 
rally made the close acquaintance of the brown 
tribes of these "separate people," — these won- 
derful wanderers who came into England four hun- 
dred years ago, and who are still continually on 
the road, the most persistent of all commercial 
travellers. 

Just two gypsy institutions must here receive a 
passing notice, — two, and no more. I have in 
mind the gypsy baby and the gypsy wedding as 
they are to be seen in the English gypsy tents of 
to-day, and as I have somewhere seen them photo- 
graphed by an English journalist. 

The child of gypsy parents is born into the 



1 8 GYPSY BAPTISMS AND WEDDINGS. 

world as poor a child as there is on the face of 
the earth. It comes into life in a tent or van 
by the roadside; it has no home; it is clothed 
in rags, and nurtured under the open sky. Yet 
it grows up healthy, ruddy, and strong. In due 
time it is the habit of the English gypsy to bring 
the baby to the church in the village where his 
tribe is tarrying, for the purpose of having it 
baptized. 

When it is to be brought to receive the blessing 
of the Church, the mother endeavors to deepen its 
brownness, and to enhance its beauty, by rubbing 
its little body with a dark liquid concocted of roots 
of wild plants and leaves of various sorts. When 
the little vagrant has been christened, it is passed 
back to the arms of the tramping mother, who 
moves on her way once more ; and neither child 
nor mother will probably ever be seen again within 
the walls of a church for any religious purpose. 

There may come a time when the sturdy infant 
shall be grown into a stony, dark-faced girl with 
black and glossy hair, and ornaments of gold in 
her ears, — a girl with a gown of many colors, and 
an abundance of rings, chains, and bracelets. And 
when this maiden is married, a most fantastic wed- 
ding ceremony is witnessed. The gypsy wedding 
is apt to take place in a sand-pit. The tribe ar- 
ranges itself in two long rows fronting each other. 
In the middle of the path between them is a broom- 



MAPS. 19 

stick, which is carefully held a little way from the 
ground in a horizontal position. 

The bridegroom walks down the path and over 
the broomstick, and stops, awaiting the bride. She 
then comes tripping down the same long path 
from an opposite direction, and also steps over the 
broomstick. The couple join hands. The wedding 
is ended with this simple and speedy ceremony. A 
little feasting is indulged in. The new couple re- 
sume their wandering life with the tribe as before. 

The difficulty of finding any one to direct me, 
while walking in England, was partially obviated by 
the use of excellent pocket-maps which are in such 
abundant supply there. I suppose, in fact I know, 
that there is no country on the face of the earth 
so thoroughly mapped as is the United Kingdom. 
As long ago as 1790, the British government de- 
termined to make a map of Great Britain, for 
military purposes, on a scale of one inch to the 
square mile ; and, as a foundation for this work, 
it began what has been termed the "big-trig," 
which was an expensive system of triangulation 
which was not completed till 1852. The prepara- 
tion of this map was commenced soon after the 
completion of this survey, and it was finished 
about ten years ago. But the maps of England 
now generally in use are those based on a scale 
of one square inch to the acre. I found these 
maps able to show me, by their shadings, hills, and 



20 



ENGLISH ROADS. 



valleys, every topographical feature of the country ; 
and also clearly placing before me, not only all the 
roads, rivers, towns, etc., but all the conspicuous 
houses of the country. 

Inquiring the way of anybody one meets is one 
of the divine rights of the pedestrian in America ; 
but I shall not soon forget the cold, vacant stare 
I received as I plodded along between Liverpool 
and London, when, by stress of circumstances, I 
was forced to stop the carriage of a stout lady — 
who may have been, for all I know, the proud wife 
of an earl — as it was rolling along in stately dig- 
nity, to tell her I was a lost traveller, and ask of 
her my way out of the maze into which I had fallen. 
As soon as the lady had recovered her composure, 
she signed to Jeames, on the box, to give me some 
information. I doubt not the English pedestrian 
of the humbler class, in which category she un- 
doubtedly placed me, would have continued to be 
lost forever before he would have had the temerity 
to ask his way of my lady in her carriage. 

English roads are almost invariably a comfort to 
the traveller, whether he plods over them on foot, 
gallops along their smooth bed in saddle, or rides 
over them in carriage. Under a system inaugu- 
rated by Macadam and Telford, they have been 
brought to a degree of perfection that surprised 
me. A word must be said of English inns, par- 
ticularly those in the rural districts, since upon 



AN OLD INN 21 

the accommodations there to be obtained depends 
much of the comfort of the person travelling upon 
the highways. I can assure my reader that he 
will find plenty of them in his way, if he travels in 
almost any direction in the rural districts of Eng- 
land. And their fare is wholesome and abundant, 
though not of great variety ; their rooms and beds 
neat and comfortable, and attendants courteous. 

A genuine old English inn that I visited was 
built of brick, and is three hundred years old. It 
stands near the roadside under ancient elms ; and 
on every hand are old oaks, beeches, and larches, 
and hedges of hawthorn. It bears the sign of 
the Wheat Sheaf, and a sheaf of wheat is rudely 
painted on its swinging sign and over its old oaken 
main entrance. In front, outside of its walls, are 
a few rude seats, upon which wayfarers rest as 
they drink the ale they have paused there to buy. 
The roof is either thatched, covered with red tile, 
or made of huge slabs of slate-stone. Within are 
no carpeted rooms, but well-worn floors of oak, 
very old, but white and clean. 

On the right, on the first floor, is the tap-room, 
presided over by a neat bar-maid. On the left, a 
simply furnished apartment where travellers can 
sit at rude benches, and drink the beer, and eat 
bread and cheese. In the rear of both is a wide 
kitchen, with a stone floor and huge open fireplace, 
after the ancient New England pattern, pot-hooks 



22 INN STABLES. 






and trannels, andirons and singing teakettles, in- 
cluded. All around this room are ranged shelves 
for cooking-utensils and food ; and overhead pots 
and kettles and flitches of pork and bacon may be 
swinging, and sometimes bannocks of barley meal. 
But I have not space to go in detail through all 
the house. The chambers are neatly furnished, 
the old style of sinks, wash-bowls, and high-posted 
beds being there, having windows that open at full 
length like doors, the glass in them having the 
smallest of panes, and fireplaces that insure a good 
ventilation. The beds I always found of extra 
width, and of extremely comfortable character. 

Through an arched passage in the centre of the 
house, over the top of which are to be observed 
legs of mutton hanging to ripen for the table, the 
stable is entered. It stands in a sort of courtyard, 
and generally has connected with it various store- 
rooms, sculleries, etc., and a room which is the 
headquarters of boots, and where he may be found 
when he is not on duty, or "Coming, sir." It is 
made of brick or stone, and the floors of the stalls 
for the horses are almost invariably made of the 
same material. One would think such a bed hard 
for the animal ; but the English jockeys claim 
they axe much healthier and cleaner than wooden 
floors, and that the horses like them better. They 
give horses most generous beds of wheat straw in 
England, piling the straw knee-deep. In cities 



INN STABLES. 23 

and large towns, large quantities of sawdust are 
used for bedding cows and horses. Peat is also 
sometimes used for this purpose. I saw no nar- 
row stalls for horses in England. The stable peo- 
ple there never tolerate such cramped stalls as are 
common with us. All the old stables have one 
department set off for " loose boxes for hunters." 
And this inscription, painted in large letters on 
the outer doors of the stables as an attraction to 
sporting patrons, vividly reminded me, when I first 
strayed among English inn stables, that I was in a 
country where field sports were still a prominent 
institution. Another equally vivid reminder of 
the same fact was the common sight of horse-vans, 
attached to express passenger-trains, for the con- 
veyance of hunters and race-horses from meet to 
meet, or from stables to meets. 

Split beans, split peas and oats, chopped hay 
and chopped straw, are the standard stable feed 
for horses. In addition, American corn — an arti- 
cle not often used in any shape for human food in 
England — is being introduced into the stable diet 
of the country. Though beans and barley are 
given to English horses, neither of the articles 
appear on English tables, except in cases where 
green table beans are served. No Boston brown 
bread nor baked beans on English bills of fares. 

And now a few words regarding prices in rural 
Inns for entertainment for man and horse. I can 



. 



24 ARTISANS' TRAVELLING EXPENSES. 

drive from Land's End to John O'Groat's without 
expending over two dollars a day on the journey; 
two dollars for self, horse and trap. Early in my 
wanderings in England I came to this conclusion. 

On showing this statement to experienced Eng- 
lishmen of the humbler class, who had as artisans 
travelled a deal over England, they said I was 
extravagant in my estimate ; and I found they did 
travel, and travel comfortably, in the country in 
England, at far less expense. 

Honest, respectable, steady English artisans 
allow themselves 2s 6d a day for travelling ex- 
penses when walking through the country. And 
their scale is this : 6d for supper, 6d for lodging, 
6d for breakfast, 8d for dinner, 4d for fees. The 
teamster gets his pair of horses breakfasted for 
1 2d ; dinner for them, the same. In each case he 
gives the hostler a tip of a penny-half-penny. I 
have tried the accommodations in small English 
inns where the prices all around were those I have 
named, and found myself very comfortable there. 
From these figures a very high upward range can 
be made. For instance, drive ten miles out of 
London, stop at Star and Garter, Richmond, and 
pay eight shillings for a lunch of cold corned beef, 
and l)c waited upon by servants in livery; and, as 
you eat your lunch, sit in the most splendid of 
dining-rooms, and look out over Richmond Park 
with its eight hundred acres of field and forest. 






COCOA-ROOMS. 25 

On the other hand, take this for an illustration. 
You will find well scattered over England very 
neat and well-kept cocoa-rooms. These are estab- 
lished to displace beer-shops, and are in the hands 
of the best people in England. I often visited 
; them, and never found a poor one. They offer a 
« great variety of food and temperance beverages, as 
1 well as accommodations for the night. What will 
\ show what the modern English cocoa-rooms are 
so well as one of their own bills ? I begged it of 
' the superintendent as I chatted with him in his 
• attractive room at Waltham Cross, eighteen miles 
J from London. Waltham there is always pro- 
1 nounced Walt-ham. Here is the bill in full: — 



WALTHAM CROSS READING-ROOMS. 

Lodging rooms, 1 person per night ... is, is 6d, and 2s. 
" " 2 persons " ... is 6d, 2s 6d, and 3s. 

" " 1 person per week ... 4s 6d, 7s, and 10s. 

" " 2 persons " ... 7s, 10s 6d, and 12s 6d. 

Hire of Club-room for meetings, etc., 2 hours or under, 2s. 
K3^ = ' Special terms for longer hiring. 
Refreshments served in rooms other than the coffee and smoking 
rooms, per each person, 3d. 
Beefsteak, small, 8d. Large, iod. 

Cold beef, per plate . . 2d. | Mutton Chop iod. 

Coffee, per large cup, id. Pint, 2d. 

Coffee, per small pot, 3d. Large, 5d. 

Tea, per large cup, i|d. Pint, 3d. 
Tea, per small pot, 4d. Large, 6d and o,d. 

Cocoa per large cup, i^d. Pint, 3d. 
New milk, per glass, i^d. 



26 COCOA-ROOMS. 

Roll, id. Butter, id. 

Bread and butter, per slice, ^d. 

Bread and ham, per slice, ^d. 
Bread and cheese .... 2d. | Cake, per slice .... id. 
Milk scones, per slice, i|d. 

Egg (fried or boiled), 2d. 

Rasher of bacon (fried), 2^d. 
Compressed beef, per \ lb., 3d. 

Peppermint water, per glass, id. 

Fruit syrups, per glass, i|d. 
Hariot's bine, per bottle, 2d. 

Lime juice, per glass, id. 

Ginger beer, per bottle, id. 
Gingerade, per bottle . . 2d. | Lemonade, per bottle . . 3d. 

Reading, smoking, and private rooms. 
Daily papers supplied, and time-tables of all the principal rail- 
ways taken here. 

All here are good but the temperance substitutes 
for beer. Those are vile. I refer to the bottled 
articles. And English coffee everywhere — in 
hotels at five dollars a day, and in modest restau- 
rants, all the same — bad. Too much chiccory. 
Tea and cocoa the very best almost everywhere. 

It should be borne in mind, in reading this 
specimen bill of an English cocoa-room, that the 
one I have selected is that of an establishment 
situated in a populous town near London, where 
rent and other incidental expenses must be of 
necessity higher than in the small country towns. 

I have in mind a fact or two bearing upon trav- 
elling expenses in England, which I gathered from 
another source. "Bachelor Fellows" at Oxford 



ECONOMICAL TRAVELLING. 2J 

a class of cultivated and gentlemanly men, are in 
the habit of travelling a deal, both in England and 
on the Continent. Fifteen pounds a month is by 
them considered ample means to defray their jour- 
ney and hotel bills. These students claim that 
they can live handsomely, and travel four months 
every year, on an annual income of three hundred 
pounds. The secret of their getting along so 
economically on the road is found in the fact that, 
while they mean to be comfortable, and get good 
accommodations, they invariably avoid guides, car- 
riages and expensive inns. 

In some of the suggestions I have made regard- 
ing travel in rural England, I have had in view 
the purchase in England, for the temporary use 
of the tourist, of a horse and trap, or saddle. A 
word regarding the disposition of the team or 
horse when the traveller has no further use for 
his purchase is now in order. His best method is 
to fling this "rolling stock" into an auction mart 
as soon as his journeys are over. This can best 
be done either in London or Liverpool. 

In walking across country I have had occasion 
to walk upon the track of a railway ; but this is 
something strictly forbidden in England, and I 
was quickly warned off the rail. But I noted then, 
i and afterwards observed, the extremely solid and 
substantial character of the road-beds of the lead- 
ing English lines. Their steel rails are very heavy, 



2 8 RAILWAY BEDS. 

about eighty pounds per lineal yard, and twenty- 
four feet long. The sleepers are laid about three 
feet apart. Heavy iron chairs are used to support 
and fix the rail, and at the joints wedges of wood 
are used to soften the rigid holdings of the rails 
by the cast-iron chairs. 

I noticed that they have a way in England of 
covering the sleepers between the rails with earth, 
cinders, etc. ; so that, in walking upon the track, 
I found my forbidden path a smooth and attrac- 
tive one, over which I could have wandered from 
village to village as comfortably as over the 
macadamized highways, had it not been for the 
locomotive dangers and the legal restrictions. 

The sleepers were formerly made almost entirely 
of the English larch, and the nobility and gentry 
of England, who own the vast, heavily wooded 
parks of the land, have made quite a business of 
selling sleepers from their timber plantations. I 
often saw gangs of wood-cutters " getting out" 
railroad-sleepers under the shadows of the splendid 
trees on the great home parks in rural England. 

Of late years large quantities of timber for rail- 
way-sleepers, as well as timber for all sorts of 
English use, have been brought from Baltic ports. 
And now a movement is being made to substitute 
steel sleepers for wooden ones, which latter are 
accused of splitting long before they decay, and 
of soon being crushed under the weight of the 
enormous traffic which burdens English roads. 



A FINE ENGLISH RAILWAY. 2$ 

A FINE ENGLISH RAILWAY. 

Such I term the London and Northwestern line, 
upon which I often travelled. The road-bed is ex- 
cellent ; the coaches, especially those of the first 
class, exceedingly neat and comfortable ; and the 
servants of the road, as all its "help " are termed, 
courteous and intelligent. The road is seventeen 
hundred miles in length. It binds together Liver- 
pool, London, Carlisle, Holyhead, Edinburgh, and 
Glasgow ; and I have a very pleasant recollection 
of being myself whirled into all these interesting 
localities behind the modest looking but powerful 
locomotives of the London and Northwestern. 

I found its "best trains," to use a favorite En- 
glish expression, would sweep me across a two- 
hundred mile stretch in just about four hours. A 
mile a minute was considered very fair time on 
these express trains ; and I have often and often 
seen my fellow passengers checking off the miles 
at this speed, remarking the while, as they flew 
along, that we were doing very well. The capital 
of the road is five hundred millions of dollars. Its 
employes number forty thousand. Every thing 
connected with the management of this road 
seemed to be administered upon the most admira- 
ble system. 

I remember hearing it stated that such a thing 
as a hot- box was never heard of on this road. 



70 A FINE ENGLISH RAILWAY. 

Under the "block system" of signals, the trains 
are directed with such success that accidents and 
delays are most infrequent. The stations are 
models of neatness, and often picturesque in their 
architecture, location, and surroundings. I can 
testify that there were to be seen along the fine 
track of this splendid road, over which I so often 
travelled, no unsightly banks left at the building 
of the line, gashed and torn, but everywhere well 
sodded and neatly terraced slopes. 

The traveller coming from a country like ours, 
where dust, noise and smoke are quite apt to be 
prominent features of a ride by rail, finds himself 
on this London and Northwestern road gliding 
like magic — silently, smoothly, clearly — through 
a garden-like country, hearing, as he dashes 
through farm-lands, parks and grazing-fields, little 
of ringing bells, or screeching whistles, and seeing 
little of dust, smoke, or cinders. 

I found that England had a great many tunnels. 
When, on a pleasant morning in April, I first set 
my foot in an English railway-coach, and made 
therein a dash into the heart of the island, I 
noticed the porters placing lamps in the roofs of 
every coach of the train, —lamps which were 
lighted in the broad day, their flame being shel- 
tered by a curtain that was drawn beneath each 
hanging burner. My curiosity was excited by this 
novel equipment, yet it was soon made clear to- 



TUNNELS. 3 1 

me why this preparation was made. The flying 
train had not travelled many miles before its loco- 
motive gave a short, sharp shriek, and dashed into 
a long, dark tunnel which might have steeped us 
in blank night had not the little curtain above us 
been withdrawn to let down upon us the cheerful 
rays of the roof-lantern. As the train sped on this 
experience was continually repeated. Tunnel after 
tunnel was reached and passed in that first jour- 
ney of a hundred miles, and many of them were 
quite long. And in subsequent English rail ex- 
periences, it seems to me I never made a trip 
without a deal of tunnel travel. 

In the construction of English railways the 
engineers appear to have adopted the theory that 
it was much cheaper to run under a gentleman's 
broad home-park than to cut through it, though, 
in many cases, the cutting would not have seemed 
at all deep to an American railroad contractor. 
Without doubt, the question of land damages and 
disfigurement of rural scenery on great estates 
had a large influence in the premises. 

I stayed for weeks in one of the most lovely rural 
districts in England, a locality full of noble parks 
and plantations, in the heart of which were the 
halls of great numbers of the nobility and gentry 
on the line of the great London and Northwestern 
Railway, which had in that section five separate 
tracks on its main route, and branches leaping 



32 RAILWAYS AND SCENERY. 

out into the country in all directions. Yet, 
though near the lines, I heard little and saw little 
of the railway, for it burrowed its way along by us 
through a series of tunnels under the gently roll- 
ing hills, into the heart of which it entered ; but I 
would occasionally catch a glimpse of a long train 
as it plunged on and buried itself. 

When the metals were first laid down in Eng- 
land, there was a great hue-and-cry against the 
rails, on the ground that they would greatly dis- 
figure the rural scenery of the country. 

The owners of lordly parks which were to be 
entered by the lines insisted in many instances 
that the tracks should not be laid on them, or 
through them, but under them. By thus boring 
and burrowing their way through great show places, 
the dreaded disfigurement was avoided, and the 
lords partially pacified. 

But there is certainly one rural and romantic 
English district from which the iron track has so 
far been debarred ; and debarred largely through 
the influence of the poetic, esthetic, and cultured 
taste of the day. Leaving the railway-coaches at 
Kendal, I walked forty miles through the lake 
district, without at any point crossing a railway- 
track, or even coming in sight of one. 

To-day, whenever a new line is projected in Eng- 
land, a powerful society, whose mission is to pro- 
tect and preserve the natural beauties of England, 



RAILWAYS AND SCENERY. 33 

directs its eye at once upon the movements of the 
builders. The name of this society is " The Com- 
mons and Open Spaces Preservation Society." 
This organization has recently been opposing the 
plans to build a railway through Epping Forest 
and the Lake region. The road proposed among 
the lakes is named the Braithwaite and Buthmere 
line, and lovers of lake scenery have been greatly 
excited by what they deem its very objectionable 
character. 

I found a railway line taking me as far into the 
beautiful lake country as I wished to travel by 
steam, and was glad enough to be able to leave 
the line behind me, and walk the thirty or forty 
miles which will cover the whole stretch of that 
romantic country. But, without doubt, the time 
is not far distant when those beautiful hills and 
valleys will re-echo to the whistle of the locomo- 
tive. Great changes are taking place there. 
Costly villas are being built on the desirable 
points along the shores of the lakes, and among 
the romantic hills in their vicinity ; and the entire 
region is taking on an artificial, town-like character, 
quite disappointing to those familiar with the early 
rural sweetness of the locality. 

While looking down from old Helvellyn upon 
one of the most romantic of the lakes of West- 
moreland, I was told that it had been purchased 
by the great city of Manchester for use as a water- 



34 



ENGLISH RAILWAY EMPLOYES. 



supply, and that plans for conveying it there by 
tunnels through Helvellyn, etc., had already been 
matured. 






I had many opportunities for observing the 
character and methods of railway employes, a 
class always termed " railway servants " in English 
circles. It appeared to me that they were, from 
the general superintendent down to the humblest 
plate-layer, of a lower grade in respect to social 
position, personal ideas regarding self-respect, 
general intelligence and individual ambition, than 
the corresponding class in the United States. 
Their pay is very moderate, their hours of labor 
long, and their work arduous. The very fact that 
these workers, high and low, are there merely 
termed railway servants, seems to me to have a 
tendency to degrade them in the social scale. 

Their uniforms are furnished by the corpora- 
tions which employ them, and often the companies 
furnish them their tenements. The rules which 
govern them in their daily routine of work upon 
the line are a curious specimen of iron-clad minute- 
ness, governing most rigidly in every detail the 
duties of their position. From the highest to the 
lowest they are a fee-taking class. It seemed to 
me a pity that the fine appearing, even dashing, 
guards of a splendid flying mail-train, drawn by 
the most perfect locomotive in the world, and 



ORDERS OF MERIT. 35 

made up of coaches which were a perfect model 
of comfort, should take your shilling as a matter 
of course, and, in recognition of the tip, should 
render you attentions taking on no little servility 
of character. 

There is one point in English railroading that 
pleased me much, and which might, it appeared 
to me, be wisely copied in the United States. I 
found the great London and Northwestern Rail- 
way had established orders of merit for their em- 
ployes. For the various degrees of merit and 
length of faithful service this road gave money 
tokens, and badges of honor, that were worn upon 
the sleeves of the coat. 

* 
I had been educated into the idea that Eng- 
land's "best hold " was manufacturing. My books 
had told me that England was the workshop of 
the world ; and when I turned my steps towards 
the United Kingdom, I expected to find there a 
nation almost entirely engaged in hammering out 
implements of iron and of steel, and weaving 
fabrics of cotton and of wool for home consump- 
tion and an export trade, whose range extended 
around the belted globe. The great manufactur- 
ing cities and towns of England are certainly hives 
of industry, such as are equalled nowhere in the 
world ; and I came out from smoky Birmingham, 
from noisy and grimy Glasgow and Sheffield, and 



36 THE FARMING INTEREST. 

the great spinning and weaving cities of Man- 
chester, Bradford and Leeds, with the impression 
that in their shops and factories the world could 
be easily equipped and clothed. 

But there is another side to this question ; and I 
obtained a full view of it when I extended my 
wanderings into rural England, and became some- 
what closely acquainted with the aspects of her 
farming interests, and had an opportunity to study 
English agriculture. I have never seen anywhere 
such fine specimens of farming. But this is a 
point that is generally well understood, and need 
not, therefore, be dwelt upon. Every one is sup- 
posed to know that England's wheat-fields are 
like garden-beds, her mowing-fields like unt rimmed 
lawns, her pastures — where I saw such fine speci- 
mens of cattle grazing up to their eyes in grass — 
better than the average hay-lands in the best part 
of New England. But there are few, however, 
who know how extensive and overtopping the 
farming interest is to-day in fertile England. 

I have many times heard very intelligent Eng- 
lishmen say that England would soon starve to 
death if it were not for the United States ; and, in 
advance, I had had no doubt that such was the 
fact. As I rambled up and down the farming dis- 
tricts of England, I heard one cry of distress going 
up from all the farmers, and that was the cry that 
America was tearing all her produce markets to 






FARMING INTEREST. 37 



pieces. And when, in the great dock warehouses 
of Liverpool and London, I saw mountains of 
wheat, corn, oats, ham, butter, cheese, etc., that 
had been pitched out of the holds of the western 
ships, I felt that the solid facts, corroborating the 
food theories I have named, were right before me. 
But now what are, after all, the real facts in the 
premises ? Here we have them : — 

Professor Tanner of England — one of those 
industrious men whose figures, believed in every- 
where, are of the kind that don't lie — said, in a 
recent address at Edinburgh, that England's farm- 
. ing interest was her leading interest ; that the 
annual value of her agricultural produce was two 
hundred and sixty million pounds ; that England 
paid away forty million pounds annually for foreign 
produce, which she might, if she paid proper atten- 
tion to farming at home, herself .raise. These 
facts must be a revelation to most readers. 

The cultivation of wheat now reaches even to 
the extreme north of Scotland. Ireland never did 
raise much wheat, or largely consume wheat ; and 
I found her at the present time everywhere nar- 
rowing her furrows, and widening her grazing- 
nelds, thereby reducing her demand for land work- 
ers, and so adding to the terrible embarrassment 
of the labor situation in Ireland. But England 
proper is a great wheat garden still, though the 
area of even her wheat-fields is decreasing, while 
her grazing-grounds are growing in extent. 



38 PRODUCTION OF WHEAT. 

We deem England the workshop of the world ; 
yet, after all, her best hold to-day is agriculture, 
and her best hold always has been agriculture. 
At the period of the revolution of 1689, she was 
raising annually fourteen million bushels of wheat. 
In 1872 the United Kingdom raised a hundred 
millions. 

Travelling through the agricultural districts of 
England in May, I had the chance to see ner broad 
and beautiful fields of young wheat ; and such per- 
fection of cultivation I have never elsewhere seen. 
Costly lands, an abundance of fertilizers, plenty 
of labor, and an immense demand for every pro- 
duct of the farm at the very gate of the tarm, are 
reasons enough for making the most of every foot 
of England's farming-lands. And if to-day she is 
turning wheat-lands into grass-lands and hay-lands, 
it is not because her wheat is not in pressing de- 
mand at high prices, but because the hay and 
grass products — in the form of beef, butter, etc. 
— will pay her even better. 

It is an interesting fact that England raises 
annually just about as many bushels of wheat as 
she imports from the United States; namely, a 
hundred millions. But England raises a greater 
number of bushels of wheat per acre than any 
land on the globe. Her average, during the last 
nineteen years, has been twenty-three bushels per 
acre, while ours has been eleven and a half. 



MACHINE FARMING. 39 

I had little idea, previous to my walks and talks 
in England, of the enormous extent to which ma- 
chinery of the finest and most modern type is 
used upon the farms and gardens in the farm- 
houses and farm-yards of the United Kingdom. 

A mere list of the names of the leading articles 
in this line with which I became familiar will be 
better than any attempt at detailed description of 
them, since their simple titles will give quite an 
idea of what the farmers of England have adopted 
as aids to handwork in field and farm-yard. There 
are steam-engines, stationary traction and com- 
pound in movement, thus making an immense 
saving in fuel ; huge steam road-rollers of the best 
pattern, and in use everywhere ; ploughs on the 
wire-rope system, by which a series of ploughs are 
attached and moved on a single wire-rope ; thresh- 
ing-machines of an endless variety ; locomotives for 
common roads ; bone mills, and mills for grinding 
and cutting all the things that a farmer is likely 
to wish to" grind or cut, from turnips to wheat ; 
reaping-machines ; straw-trussing machines ; gar- 
den ploughs for use in contracted spaces ; drain- 
ing ploughs ; thatch or straw yealming machines ; 
straw thatch weaving machines ; water drills ; 
manure drills ; and sheaf binders. 

But I might as well give up the attempt to cata- 
logue England's farm and garden machinery. I 
saw enough of it to convince me that the English 



4 o 



MODEL FARMING. 



farmers are fully up with the times in their ma- 
chinery as well as their methods. The smoothness 
and beauty of their farm fields astonished and de- 
lighted me. Their ploughed lands are made as 
level and as free" from all stones as the finest 
gardens are with us. And, in planting, the Eng- 
lish farmers so put in the rows and hills that the 
fields seem as regularly laid out as the squares 
on a checker-board. Some of the farms are very 
large, and many of them are carried on with scien- 
tific and business skill and precision. 

Many gentlemen of wealth and high social posi- 
tion appear to go into the business of farming for 
the purpose of advancing the farming interests of 
their country, by placing before those who are in 
the same occupation, but who have fewer advan- 
tages, examples of the highest art in farming. 
The Duke of Edinburgh, son of the Queen, carries 
on an immense model farm. The American visitor 
to England is likely to become interested in the 
immense seed farms, some of which I had an op- 
portunity of glancing at. 

One of the most famous of these is owned by 
the great Stourbridge firm of G. Webb & Sons, 
who use thirteen thousand acres of land for grow- 
ing seeds, and who have won in prizes for their 
seeds seventeen thousand pounds. 

English farm-work is carried on in a heavy but 
extremely thorough manner. The English farm- 



AN AMUSING PROTEST. 4 1 

er's plough is heavier than ours ; his farm-wagon 
stouter, all his farm implements made more sub- 
stantially than ours, and expected to last longer. 
And, of necessity, he uses more force in his work 
than do we : larger horses, and more of them to 
the plough, the wagon, the roller ; and more stout 
men, and fewer boys, are managing the machines 
on his farming-fields. 

A significant illustration of this point comes to 
mind. Intelligent correspondent writes the inevi- 
table letter to "The London Times," setting forth 
how alarming it was to find that farmers in his 
neighborhood were actually permitting boys of the 
tender age of fourteen to handle and drive farm- 
horses ; and how one poor boy of that age had, 
while driving a horse and cart, been run over. 
The writer ends up by calling for immediate legis- 
lation in the premises, closing in the stereotyped 
"Times" correspondents' style, "I enclose my 
card, and beg to subscribe myself your most obe- 
dient servant, Bishops Stortford." As I have been 
used to seeing American farmers manage quite a 
farm with no other force than themselves, a light- 
weight horse, and two or three small boys, I was, 
of course, amused by this panic over the dangers 
of allowing English boys of fourteen to go near 
horses. 

Having been, from youth, accustomed to a 
method of farming in New England that is, upon 



42 COMPACT FARMING. 

the whole, of a character just the opposite of that 
which I have in mind when using the words com- 
pact farming, the style of cultivating the soil 
which came under my observation in England 
seemed, in comparison, to be thorough, systematic, 
and in most points well-nigh perfect. I have often 
walked through long stretches of English country 
where, on every hand, were to be seen pastures 
that were better than the average of New Eng- 
land hay-lands, and where the hay-fields were like 
the finest lawns ; while the portions of the soil 
under the plough were like garden-beds, and were 
growing crops likely to yield per acre an average 
overtopping the most special crop successes of 
New England. 

Yet, as I have intimated, these things are only 
matters of comparison ; and so I was called upon 
even in England to hear much talk in condemna- 
tion of the faulty methods of her farmers in cul- 
tivating the soil, particularly in the matter of 
spreading their labor and their fertilizers over too 
much area. It was not uncommon to hear such 
expressions as "milking the land dry " applied to 
English farmers ; and, in proof of their mistaken 
methods in this regard, I was pointed to the vast 
acreage of English land that had been worn out 
and had become waste, as a consequence of this 
short-sighted method of its treatment. I have 
found that there is a word of Continental extrac- 



"INTENSIVE FARMING." 43 

tion — the word " intensive " as applied to farming 
— which happily describes the methods of the agri- 
culturalists of such a country as Holland, whose 
style of farm management is held up by English 
writers on agriculture as a model for English 
farmers. " Intensive farming " is the opposite of 
what the English term extensive farming, or farm- 
ing that spreads itself over too much land, gather- 
ing from a broad acre a product that might more 
easily have been harvested from narrower fields. 
I did not find time to make an exploration of 
Holland ; but wherever I wandered in England, I 
fell in with specimens of its dairy products, and 
cattle that had been driven from its fertile fields ; 
for Holland is England's great dairy farm, and one 
of her chief sources of reliance for live meat. In 
illustration of Holland's " intensive farming," a 
few trustworthy figures from one of her snug 
farms will best serve our purpose. In one of those 
districts of Holland, which in years gone by was 
a bog, upon a tract of three hundred and twenty- 
two acres was found a farmer who was keeping 
thirty cows, and feeding for the shambles ten cat- 
tle, which were made fat, disposed of, and replaced 
three times a year. In comparison with this state- 
ment, I set alongside of it an average of " exten- 
sive farming " in New Hampshire. Our New 
Hampshire man was the slave of a hundred and 
twenty acres of land, much of which he had 



44 THE ENGLISH HAY CROP. 

already milked thoroughly dry. In toil, and well- 
nigh hopeless over the prospect, he was keeping 
three cows, fattening two pigs, and one pair of 
oxen, keeping fifteen sheep and an over-worked 
horse, and gathering from a wide stretch of well- 
nigh exhausted fields a small variety of the thin- 
nest crops. 

The hay crop of England is mainly stacked in 
the fields ; and these picturesque cones of hay, 
ranged in tent-like villages about the farm-yards, 
are a novel and pleasant sight to the traveller 
from a country of hay-barns. The hay sometimes 
remains out several years, and the climate is such 
that it is often but little injured by the long ex- 
posure. To meet whatever injury weather may 
inflict upon the barnless hay, the farmers often 
buy a "hay spice," warranted to improve all hay 
in flavor, smell, and quality, and to give rough, 
coarse hay attractive flavor and aromatic smell, 
restoring damaged hay to a feeding value, even 
when it is black and rotten. This is certainly an 
idea not adopted in America. 

English farmers are much given to the use of 
composition foods for cattle, sheep, etc. Thus I 
have seen widely advertised in English farming- 
papers calf meals, cream of milk, and meal sub- 
stitutes, by which calves may be reared without 
expenditure of milk. Mixtures called lambs' foods, 
rice-meal, feeding cakes, and other curious food 



COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SHOWS. 45 

compositions for animals, are also largely sold to 
English farmers. 

County agricultural shows are very popular in 
England, and from them we have copied our 
farming exhibition customs. But in old England 
these are held in June, July, and August ; and not 
in autumn, as with us. The great men of the Eng- 
lish shows are their patrons, — members of the 
royal families and nobles of high degree, whose 
names head the handbills which I saw posted in 
the farming regions in letters of big size. 

Straw for litter is costly in England ; and so I 
found the farmers buying a " moss litter," — a litter 
which is largely used in place of straw by the 
British army. Portable "wooden houses" are ad- 
vertised and sold in England, and are often bought 
by farmers. English farmers are quite in the 
habit of patronizing a public registry, where, on 
making a small payment, farm servants, imple- 
ments, horses, cattle, dogs, etc., can be entered 
under the heads of "wanted," or "for sale." 

Splendid crops of oats are raised in England. 
In some instances, harvests of seventy bushels to 
the acre are obtained. Very few oats are used 
upon the Englishman's table in any shape. I had 
expected to find oatmeal popular with English 
lousekeepers, but they use very little of it. 

English market terms are decidedly different 



46 SHEEP. 

from ours. Beasts and sheep, for instance, are 
terms I often heard, meaning neat cattle and 
sheep, — as if sheep were not beasts. 

Here are some of the names I heard flying 
around markets where beasts and sheep were dealt 
in : Home-bred short-horns, Hereford bullocks, 
hoggetts, fat sheep out of their wool, stirks, bar- 
reners, grazing ewes, keeping-hogs, in-calves, cross- 
bred heifers. 

I found sheep abundant wherever I travelled in 
England, Scotland, Ireland, or Wales ; and I soon 
came to the conclusion that a live-mutton census 
of the United Kingdom would show that she had 
a vast number of wool producers. But I was not 
prepared for the following sheep figures which I 
obtained from trustworthy English sources : — 

June i, 1882, there existed in the United King- 
dom 15,573,884 sheep above one year ; sheep un- 
der one year old, 8,745,884, — a total of 24,319,768. 
In all the vast area of the the United States and 
territories, there are about 45,000,000 of sheep ; 
and it should be remembered that England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland contain together one half as 
many square miles as our single state of Texas. 

I found sheep, under the care of shepherds, 
browsing in the parks of London. They were 
large and handsome sheep, loaded heavily with 
wool, when I saw them feeding in the tall grass of 
Hyde Park in the early spring ; and their pres- 



SHEEP-WASHING. 47 

ence in the heart of the smoky and thronged city- 
gave a bucolic, pastoral aspect to the scenery, 
and much gratification to the romping children 
who were fond of watching the sheep, shepherds, 
and the wonderful collie dogs which herded the 
sheep. The sheep in the parks of the towns and 
cities, and those in the broad pastures of the great 
mining and manufacturing districts, were black- 
ened in their coats by the dust and smoke of the 
bla.ck country in which they moved ; while, on the 
Cheviot hills of Scotland, the very same species 
of sheep and lambs were snow-white and clean. 

I saw sheep-washings occasionally. They were 
conducted as with us in America ; but proper 
watering-places for the work seemed scarce in 
some parts of England, for I have seen a gang of 
farm laborers washing sheep by the roadside, in 
a dirty goose-pond sort of water-basin, and have 
wondered whether the sheep would not come out 
of the stagnant mud-hole dirtier than when they 
went in. 

In Scotland I rambled considerably among the 
Cheviot hills and valleys, and there made quite a 
close acquaintance with the fine breed of sheep 
that graze upon the heather-covered pastures of 
the region, and give their woolly coats to make 
|:he Cheviot fabrics. In these broad pastures I 
}ften saw little circular pens made of stone, stand- 
I ,ng alone far from the homes of the farmers ; and 



48 SHEEP. 

I found that these walled places in the fields were 
shelters for the sheep in stormy winter weather. 
Here they cluster when the snow drives hard and 
fast, and piles high on the bleak hillsides, plains, 
and valleys ; and, nestling close together, manage 
to keep life and warmth in each other until the 
shepherds come to their relief. I was told by 
shepherds that they had often dug their sheep out 
from under great depths of snow that had suddenly 
fallen upon their flocks while they were huddled 
in these places of refuge from the weather. 

In travelling in the farming districts of England, 
I often saw large flocks of sheep in the early spring 
penned in the fields near the farmers' homes, 
where they were fed night and morning from great 
piles of turnips that had been kept in the open 
air under a slight covering of straw and earth ail 
winter, and which were fed out to the sheep sliced 
by a hand machine running somewhat on the hay- 
cutter principle. 

I also often saw the little shelter houses on 
wheels standing amid the "sheeperies," which are 
used by the shepherds who are caring for the ewes 
in lambing-time, and which Thomas Hardy has 
something to say about in " Far from the Mad- 
ding Crowd." 

Though England grows a huge pile of good 
wool, it is a small pile compared to that which is 
brought to her shores from her distant colonial 



THE COW AND PUMP. 49 

possessions, and periodically sold under the ham- 
mer, thousands of bales at a time, in that greatest 
wool centre in the world, London, and subse- 
quently scattered widely in weaving lands. 

I know something of the magnitude of the pur- 
chases of wool for American account that have 
been made through London agencies of Austra- 
lian and other foreign houses ; and it is a constant 
matter of wonder to me that the United States, 
with all its vast area, is obliged to go across such 
wide waters, at such costs in the way of duties, 
freight, etc., for wool that might be raised here. 

The cow and the pump in England, as with us, 
are often found working together to supply a trust- 
ing public with "pure milk." A vast number of 
cows are kept in the city of London, but the bulk 
of the milk there consumed is brought in by 
rail from points often far back in the interior. I 
often fell in with the milk contractors of the rural 
districts. No use is made by them of our own 
style of milk-can. Wooden tubs and casks are 
favorite English receptacles of milk, and their 
general use of wood for this purpose is a custom 
which deserves to be copied. Another milk holder 
in use by the wholesale and retail dealers is a 
vessel of tin holding ten or fifteen gallons, and 
shaped something like an old-fashioned Ameri- 
can churn. In the cities there is more or less 



50 MILK AND WATER. 



difficulty experienced in getting pure "straig 
milk." Inspection is close, and many arrests for 
adulteration are constantly made in London. The 
most common London sin against milk is its adul- 
teration with water. And, as London water is 
poor, the resulting mixture makes an unattractive 
fluid. In noting some of the cases where milk 
dealers were summoned before the petty session 
for selling adulterated milk, I was interested by 
accounts of their methods, and amused by the 
various defences made by the offenders. They 
were always presenting some excuse or another, 
which they seemed to expect would relieve them 
from the fines they feared, — fines which often 
touched as high as seven pounds for a single 
offence. 

D. Barker, dairy farmer, of Oaks Farm, Chig- 
well, — in England they always have a name for 
their farms, — was summoned for putting fifty per 
cent of water into his milk. An inspector, under 
the food and drugs act, — by this avenue the law 
watches the London milkman, — met the defend- 
ant at Chigwell Lane station with one of these 
large churns of milk which I have described, from 
which he purchased a pint, and sent it to the 
public analyst with the watering result I have 
named. Defendant pleaded guilty in fact but in- 
nocent in mind, since the water got in through a 
bad boy who did the milking. He had a cow that 



. 



" STRAIGHT MILK. " 5 I 

was a kicker, and upset the pails. The boy had 
been directed to tie the cow's legs, which he neg- 
lected to do ; and, having some more milk upset, 
he was afraid of master, and flung into the churn 
a pail of water which he got from one of the 
pumps which were "all over the yard." 

The Bench thought it a very bad case, and 
levied a fine of y£ ios, and costs. The expres- 
sion "straight milk," which I have used in de- 
scribing the watering of London's milk supply, 
recalls to me the fact that I first heard it used by 
an American milkman, who told me that, while a 
beginner in the retail milk business, he was told 
by a young man, who was foreman for a neighbor- 
ing milk dealer, that he could never keep his cus- 
tomers if he supplied them with "straight milk." 
He explained himself by telling the new milkman 
his experience with the adulteration business. 

* 
Judging from my own experience and observa- 
tion in England, I should say that many of the 
sweetest and finest strawberries found upon Brit- 
ish tables were brought there from the Continent, 
particularly from France. But in the gardens of 
the United Kingdom there are certainly cultivated 
strawberries of enormous size and splendid ap- 
pearance. Yet the flavor of these, as well as that 
of most of the table fruits which are grown on 
English soil and under English suns, is quite dis- 



5 2 STRA WBERRIES. 

appointing to one used to the quality of American 
grown fruits of the same class. It is not uncom- 
mon to find upon a London table strawberries of 
which a dozen will weigh a pound, and whose 
length will nearly equal that of your finger ; yet 
these magnificent berries are far inferior in taste 
to the smaller ones which you have picked in the 
pastures of your American home. 

I found many English housekeepers had a 
dietetic prejudice against strawberries and cream, 
— one of the sweetest and most healthful dishes 
ever placed upon a table ; and so served the berry 
with sugar and the juice of the lemon, — an Eng- 
lish notion which I have not the slightest wish 
to Americanize. 

The native strawberry (fragaria) is really a 
North American production, though it has been 
naturalized in many lands. Its cultivation is most 
largely carried on in Europe. In English gardens 
strawberries are generally grown in rows, with 
straw paths between, — hence, say some, the name 
strawberry ; though more likely the name comes 
from Anglo-Saxon strae, from which we have the 
English verb stray, the strawberry-vine being pre- 
eminently a wanderer. 

Great Britain grows a delicious wild strawberry, 
called there the wood-strawberry, since it is mainly 
found in woods and thickets. But it is, like all 
other wild fruits of Britain, not abundant, and 



PINEAPPLES. 53 

yearly growing less so. Its flavor gives the lie to 
Voltaire's well-known saying, that "the only fruit 
that ripens in England is a baked apple." 

I was interested, while in England, in visits which 
I occasionally made to the fashionable fruit-shops 
of the great cities, and was astonished at the 
prices which were paid by the nobility and gentry 
— or, rather, by the wealthy classes— for fruits that 
had been raised under glass for table use. Take 
the pineapple for an illustration. On sale at all 
seasons of the year, it is in constant use by those 
who can afford to pay for it such prices as five 
and six dollars each, figures I saw it marked at in 
the fruit-shops. But these pines were of magnifi- 
cent size and flavor. 

This fruit, which is a native of tropical America, 
and which has been naturalized in other tropical 
countries, is very largely raised in England in hot- 
houses, or pineries, as they are there termed ; and 
a pinery is a very common feature of the gardens 
on large estates. It is quite a general practice to 
grow the plants in pots plunged in tanner's bark, 
or other fermenting matter, the plants being trans- 
ferred from one house to another as they progress. 
A three-years' culture of this sort will produce 
fruit of great perfection. And such I saw in the 
pineries of the Marquis of Westminster at Eaton 
Hall. The pineapple is also often planted in beds 



5 4 PIGEON-FL YING. 

under the glass, and forced forward to fruit in 
fifteen months. A pine which has once borne 
fruit is thrown away as useless. 

PIGEON-FLYING IN THE NORTH OF 
ENGLAND. 

I cannot say that this old-fashioned and very 
innocent amusement is not common in other parts 
of England ; but I happened to observe it and 
hear it talked about in the northern counties 
among the miners and mill-workers. These labor- 
ers (men, of course, in a very humble condition of 
life) I have seen on Sunday (a day among these 
people little devoted to church-going, and largely 
given over to out-of-door amusements) clustered 
in the little back-yards of their lowly cottages, 
watching and cooing over their pet pigeons, their 
ruddy and strong and very extensive flock of little 
children in the group with them. 

The Princess of Wales, and many other noble 
people in England, have set their faces against trap 
pigeon-shooting, — a brutal sport which I found 
in great favor in many parts of England ; and 
Parliament is being petitioned to put it down. 
But nothing can be urged against the lively and 
exciting game of pigeon-flying stronger than that 
named to me by a good Wesleyan engine-driver 
of Lancashire, which was that the poor miners, 



PIGEON-FL YING. 5 5 

and others who were given to it, broke Sunday all 
to pieces with the sport. 

But as I had, in my wanderings in the black 
country of England, seen much of the sad, grimy 
life of its under-ground and above-ground workers, 
I could not feel like condemning their Sunday 
home-play with their beautiful pigeons, — a white 
and open-air sport which tended to keep the work- 
ers out of the beer-shops, and away from dog-fights, 
cock-fights, and prize-fights, "amusements" all too 
common among the working classes in "merry 
England." 

The traveller through this hard-working portion 
of England of which I am writing will sometimes 
catch a glimpse of a scene something like this : 
A group of miners, clad in moleskin mufflers around 
their necks in place of cravats and collars, clus- 
tered around a couple of their number, one of 
wnom holds a basketful of pigeons, and the other 
holds in his hands a watch, and is termed a timer, 
— a very important character. One by one the 
pretty little pigeons are let out of the basket, 
from which they dart aloft swift as an arrow ; and, 
as each one dashes into the open air, his time is 
taken, and his rapid flight watched with breathless 
interest by the group of workers, every man of 
whom knows each separate pigeon. The birds 
fly away to the home goal, some miles from the 
point of starting, where their time of arrival is 



56 MINING. 

\ 

carefully taken. This is the time-honored game 
of pigeon-flying in old England. 

* 

A Lancashire miner graphically described to me 
the process of coal-mining. He did it well, for 
he had spent years sixteen hundred feet under 
ground. England mines half the coal that is 
mined in the world, and Lancashire is one of 
England's heaviest contributors to her coal-heap. 
All about him were men and boys who had never 
known any other employment than that of win- 
ning coal. He liked the work ; they all liked it ; 
preferred it, with all its dangers, and what I should 
deem its disagreeable features, to any sort of 
above-ground employment that presented itself. 
He had known the time when women and little 
children went down into the mines. 

For a long time after they stopped working 
under ground they were employed on the pit hills — 
that is, on the mounds at the mouths of the pits — in 
handling coal. But even that was not now allowed. 
Boys of fourteen worked by his side. They began 
with light occupation, such as leading the ponies, 
loading the coal after it had been taken out by the 
picks, the blasts, and the coal-getting machines. 
Yes ; the little boys also seemed to like their 
occupation. 

The "shifts" were eight hours; yet he had 
sometimes, in time of danger in the mine, worked 






MINING. 57 



forty-eight hours without sleep or rest. No ; they 
never went to sleep down there, no matter how 
long they might remain there, for they would not 
dare to do this. In his long stretches of work, he 
had labored at helping the carpenters and masons 
shore up, and set brick supports, where there was 
danger from falling earth, rocks, and coal. 

The miner, in descending into the mines for his 
eight-hours' shift, takes with him as food a most 
simple little lunch which he terms his "jackbit." 
Sometimes he finds the water that springs out of 
the earth about him, as he delves in his deep cut, 
fit to drink ; but this is seldom the case, and so he 
is always supplied with water from above ground. 
But the water from the deep cutting generally 
answers for the ponies. These animals, when once 
taken down, are never brought up again until they 
are dead or disabled. No ; they never seem timid 
or skittish when once they are down below, though 
they often kick about " like thunder " when first 
brought to the mouth of the mine, and led to the 
cages which are to bear them to the bottom. The 
most wild and fractious ponies become mild and 
patient as soon as they went to work down in the 
mine. It seemed to my mining man, who had 
spent his life with them in this coal depth, as if 
they were overwhelmed by the awful surroundings 
to which they were so suddenly introduced, and 
had all their spirit and courage crushed out of 



58 MINING EXPERIENCES. 

them. Hay, grain and bedding went down the 
cages after them ; and the bottom of the pit be- 
came forever after their stable, pasture, and field 
of work. 

He thought the occupation of a miner was not 
an unhealthf ul one, — was, in fact, sure, from his 
own experience and observation, that such was the 
case. But he knew it was one of the most dan- 
gerous occupations followed. Down they went, 
a thousand yards in some cases, leaving all sun- 
shine behind them. The descent was made most 
rapidly. He was just a minute and a half in going 
his sixteen hundred feet. His cage was a double- 
decker. A dozen men stepped in. It fell till their 
heads were out of sight. Another dozen stepped 
upon the table above them. Then down they 
spun. Huge engines, furnishing power for lower- 
ing men, horses and supplies, stood far from the 
pit mouth. Always two ; so, if one became dis- 
abled, another would be ready. His engines were 
big fellows, a hundred and eighty horse-power each. 

In my wanderings in Derbyshire, I had entered 
the cottages of some of the miners ; and I remem- 
bered finding some of the men off work, and hover- 
ing over the fire in the chimney corner, doubled 
up with rheumatism, which they said they had 
caught from exposure to draughts in cuttings in 
the mines ; and these invalids told me mining was 
very apt to bring on rheumatic troubles. The 



MINING EXPERIENCES. 59 

miner now talking with me, who was strong and 
healthy, still averred he had never heard of mining 
being unhealthful in any respect. But he remarked 
that the business was cramping to the limbs, and 
that, after long service, miners were apt to become 
more or less deformed in shape. He could always 
tell a miner above ground by his cramped gait. 

The great wheel at the mouth of the pit I was 
looking at was thirty feet in diameter, the shaft 
eighteen feet in diameter. Though eight hours 
was the regular day's work with the miner, he had 
six-hours' shifts, where his labors were of unusual 
severity, and under extremely disadvantageous cir- 
cumstances. Extreme wetness was one of his 
worst mining troubles. 

I saw and heard a deal of the miner's home-life, 
and I found his home more attractive and com- 
fortable than I had expected. His cottage was 
often a model of neatness. The little muslin cur- 
tain was in the window ; and there were flowers in 
the windows, and, in summer, in front of his house. 
His little children were in good schools. Himself 
and family attended the Wesleyan Church. Where 
there were no small children, the wife and daugh- 
ters went to work in the factory, while the hus- 
band and sons were delving in the mine. 

In estimating the limit of England's coal sup- 
ply, it should be borne in mind that the volume of 
the coming demand may be materially reduced by 



60 COAL RESOURCES. 

increased economy as the price increases, and by 
the introduction of coal-saving appliances, — in- 
ventions which shall make the most of every pound 
of coal used. London, in 1882, consumed 10,500,- 
000 tons of coal, upon which the city duty was 
about ,£600,000. But her consumption would" 
have been far greater had not this modern econ- 
omy, and these coal-saving inventions, come in 
play to reduce it. In fixing the time when Eng- 
land shall be coalless, scientists agree that this 
date will depend, not upon the exhaustion of the 
beds, but upon the time when the depth and nar- 
rowness of the seams shall render their working 
impossible. Leading authorities have generally 
held that the coal imbedded in the United King- 
dom must be abandoned when it could not be 
reached without going below a depth of 4,000 feet. 
Below 4,000 feet the heat of the mines becomes, 
they say, unendurable by the miners. The tem- 
perature sinks one degree Fahrenheit for every 60 
feet descent into those coal-mines, and at a depth 
of 4,000 feet reaches 11 6°. There are, however, 
some English theorizers upon this point who con- 
tend that a high-priced demand for coal will in- 
duce miners to work in hotter temperature than 
this ; and one eminent professor, who has seen men 
working in John Brown's Sheffield steel works, 
where the temperature was 140 in the Bessemer 
pits, with a radiated heat quite sufficient to roast 



COAL-MINING DIFFICULTIES. 6 1 

a sirloin, argues that men will dig out coal in heat 
like this if paid well. The philosopher doubles 
the 4,000 feet limit, and believes coal will be 
mined in England in the far future at a depth of 
8,000 feet, in a temperature of 183 . 

Another difficulty about mining coal at great 
depths comes from the narrowness and hardness 
of the seams consequent upon the tremendous 
pressure. But still there are those who believe 
an English miner will crouch and dig a seam of 
less than three feet in height, at a depth of 8,000 
or 10,000 feet, if he is paid high wages. But Eng- 
land may, in time, find it cheaper to import her 
coal, than to dig it out of her soil at the extreme 
depth, and under the extreme disadvantages, I 
have described. North America has seventy times 
as many square miles of coal area as has Great 
Britain ; and when it costs more to move coal into 
England vertically than to bring it there hori- 
zontally, then it will not be mined, but imported. 
And there are other countries than America from 
which it may, in time, be profitably brought to 
England, — from China, for instance, which has 
4,000 square miles of coal-fields. 

Coal panics are engineered over the question of 

the probabilities of an early giving-out of the coal- 

I supply of the kingdom. Royal commissions, and 

other authorities, have given forth any amount of 

statistics relative to this question. The student 



62 RETAILING COAL. 

may take his choice from a wide range of figures 
in the premises, — a range running from an official 
statement that the unmined coal in the kingdom 
foots up 146,480,000 of tons, and will last, at a 
fair estimate of current consumption, for 11 86 
years, to another scientific report which takes the 
ground that England will be out of coal in a hun- 
dred years. The judicious reader may plant him- 
self at will anywhere in this field of figures. 

The London prices for coal delivered range from 
twenty-four to eighteen shillings per .ton. The 
very common London habit of delivering coals in 
large sacks is not a universal practice, for I saw 
many deliveries going on in about the style usual 
in the United States. Many of the great coal- 
mining companies advertise in the leading cities 
their readiness to deliver coal to direct consumers 
in any quantities wanted. They also advertise to 
deliver coal by the car-load to any railway-station 
in the kingdom. These cars, or trucks, as they 
are termed in England, carry from five to eight 
tons. 

They have novel names in London for the dif- 
ferent sizes of coals ; for instance, cobbles, strong 
kitchen, hard cobbles, and also an endless num- 
ber of names indicating the mines from which 
they have been dug, some of which are familiar 
well-nigh the world over, for they are names of 
mines of immense productiveness. In this class 



COAL-MINES. 6$ 

are the Clay Cross, Walls End, Wigan, Thorn- 
cliffe Main, Seaham and Derby. 

During some of England's great wars the tax 
on coal rose as high as nine shillings a chaldron. 
These national taxes have long been abolished ; 
and the only tax upon the article that remains is 
the local tax now levied by London, and a few 
other large towns. At one time the city of Lon- 
don weighed all the coal consumed by the city, 
and fixed the prices at which it should be sold. 

All about the coal regions of England I found 
coal-mines that had been exhausted and deserted. 
Other mines which I saw had been driven deeper 
and deeper into the earth, the supply nearer the 
surface having been exhausted, and mining at 
this great depth was very costly. This is one of 
the reasons why coal has been steadily increasing 
in price during the last quarter of a century. As 
I travelled through the coal-mining districts of 
England, I had pointed out to me districts where 
the coal-diggings led under villages, hamlets and 
the estates of noblemen. And it was no uncom- 
mon thing for me to be shown places where the 

| operations of the miners had undermined the very 
railroads over which I was beins: whirled, — liter- 
ally undermined ; for my attention was frequently 

| called to instances where the coal companies had 
inflicted such serious injuries on lines by their 
excavations under the tracks that they had been 



64 COAL DELIVERY. 

sued for heavy damages, and some of these cases 
were in court while I was in England. 

In towns and villages not too far from the shafts 
of coal-mines, the supply of coal is taken in carts 
direct from the mouths of the coal-mines to the 
bins of the consumers. I very frequently saw in 
such vicinities the stout horses and heavy carts of 
these local coal-carriers toiling over the roads with 
their big loads of coal. The long and rapidly fly- 
ing coal-trains that I saw whirling towards Lon- 
don so thickly, and from so many directions, shunt 
their coal-vans into the great coal-yards of the 
city. 

From these vast coal-yards, which have, as a 
general thing, water as well as rail avenues leading 
to them, coal is delivered to consumers in the fol- 
lowing manner : Such purchasers as prefer so to 
receive it have it delivered to them in enormous 
blocks which they pile up as one piles wood, and 
from which they get their daily supply by splitting 
the blocks. A majority prefer it shall be delivered 
to them in sacks made of Liverpool bagging, each 
sack containing two hundred pounds. 

Deliveries of coal in this style were constantly 
being observed by me during my stay in London 
and other English towns and cities ; and I could 
not fail to note the many advantages of the method. 
The obstruction and soiling of sidewalks and door- 
ways was, by this mode of handling the coal, 



TRAVELLING ARTISANS. 6$ 

entirely obviated ; and the delivery was accom- 
plished more speedily and more handily than it is 
with us. Here, again, I raised the question, why 
do we not, in our large towns and cities, at least, 
give the English coal-sacks a trial. 

Besides the delivery of coal by the quantity in 
the ways I have described, coal peddlers do a retail 
business in the streets of London from horse and 
pony wagons, and sometimes even from little carts 
drawn by themselves. These retailers sell in the 
smallest lots, if so requested ; and touchingly little 
parcels of coal are often taken by their poorer cus- 
tomers. All coal sellers in England are obliged, 
by the laws of the realm, to carry weighing appa- 
ratus on their carts ; and they are thus in readi- 
ness to satisfy the careful or doubting customer by 
weighing all purchases under the eye and on the 
premises of the purchaser. How would it answer 
to have such a legal requirement as this in the 
United States ? 

While walking over the highways and by-ways 
of England, I often fell in with artisans of various 
classes who were travelling from town to town in 
search of a "job ; " and with them I had many in- 
teresting talks respecting their different occupa- 
tions, and the condition and prospects of English 
mechanics. 

As a class, these wanderers were a badly dis- 



66 APPRENTICE LAWS. 

couraged and well-nigh penniless set of men. 
Many of them had been stranded, as it were, by 
the changes in methods of manufacture that had 
taken place since they learned their trades. For 
illustration, many and many a shoemaker that I 
met on the road told me that the various modern 
inventions in the way of cable screw and other 
wire fastenings, that were taking the place of the 
old-time hand-sewing with thread, had nearly 
ruined his trade, which was that of making sewed 
shoes. These artisans had, for the most part, 
learned their trades under the old-style apprentice 
system ; and one and all they united in a severe 
and most decided condemnation of this system. 
They felt that the long and tedious apprenticeship 
had been an injury to them, and they had a bitter 
grudge against the laws and customs which forced 
them into the servitude. In old times in England 
there were statues (enacted in reign of Elizabeth) 
providing that an apprenticeship of seven years 
must positively be served before one could work 
as a journeyman at a trade ; and heavy fines were 
imposed upon any man found violating this law. 
In those days trades were held to be secrets ; and 
"stealing" them, as now quite often practised in 
the United States and elsewhere, was deemed an 
offence against the laws. The term " master of 
arts," as now used by our colleges, had its origin 
in those old days ; and was applied to those who, 



APPRENTICE HARDSHIPS. 6j 

by seven years' service, had made themselves mas- 
ter of some mechanical art. 

These apprentice laws are relics of a semi-bar- 
barous age. An old English shoemaker, who was 
on the verge of starvation, though he had served 
seven long years in Bedford to master the art 
which now would not support him, bewailed to me 
bitterly that the apprentice laws of England had 
been far less favorable than those of the Conti- 
nent, of which, in some points, they were copies. 
In this unfavorable comparison, he instanced that 
pleasant feature of the German trade laws which 
provided that the apprentice shall have the privi- 
lege of wide travel after he had served his seven 
years, and before he settled down as a journeyman. 
Said the poor old English mechanic : " I worked 
like a slave sixteen hours a day during my appren- 
ticeship, and never got a bit of a chance to see my 
own country. But it used to be a saying among 
us apprentices, ' See London, or die a fool ; ' and I 
thank my stars that I have, once at least, seen 
mighty London." 

While walking from Liverpool to London, I 
had, on one portion of my route, the companion- 
ship of a young mechanic who had served out a 
long indentured apprenticeship with a London 
master. By the terms of his indentureship his 
parents surrendered the entire control of the son 
to the master ; and, the master being a bad one, 
his condition became worse than that of a slave. 



68 CASTE IN TRADES. 

His food and bed were mean ; his hours ex- 
tremely long ; he had no amusements ; much of 
his time was spent on work that had no relation 
to a trade. Other English artisans have told me 
stories similar to this that I learned as I walked 
through Epping Forest with the wandering Eng- 
lish mechanic who was travelling to London in 
search of a "job." An old English artisan, Avho 
had never been to school a day in his life, and who 
had been hard at work ever since he was six years 
old, told me that he served seven years' appren- 
ticeship with a perfectly honest but very poor and 
much overworked man ; and his condition, during 
that seven years, was that of an underfed and over- 
worked slave. This man had never read that won- 
derful book for the times in which it was written, 
Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," for he had 
just barely taught himself to read the simplest 
words, and to little more than write his own name ; 
yet he expressed precisely the ideas laid down by 
Adam Smith, when he told me that he thought 
every man ought to have a chance to learn any 
trade in the quickest time he could ; and that 
every man working at a trade ought to receive pay 
for what he did, if what he did was of any value. 

This man had been apprenticed to a shoemaker ; 
and his account of the way of life, while an appren- 
tice, was a sad one. He worked sixteen hours a 
day, and lived almost entirely on bread and water 



CASTE IN TRADES. 69 

served up in various simple styles. For instance, 
his breakfast was usually teakettle broth, prepared 
by mixing hot water with crumbs of stale bread. 
The result, a broth to be eaten with a spoon. 
His supper was plain bread washed down with 
cold water. His dinner, bread, potatoes and pork. 
Did not remember ever having any other meat but 
pork. Master kept pigs. 

Caste in trades is quickly observable in Eng- 
land. That castes exist will be readily appre- 
hended by American readers, since caste in trades 
exists, to a certain extent, in the United States. 
In illustration of the English situation in such 
matters, I may state that I found in England that 
such trades as watch-making, and maker of other 
classes of fine machinery, were deemed high caste 
trades ; while the trade of shoemaking may be 
named as an instance of a low caste trade. The 
somewhat anomalous position of this trade arises 
in part from the old-time English custom of gen- 
erally apprenticing paupers' sons to the shoemak- 
ing trade. 

Not long ago an enthusiastic English lady, who 
was "doing" Athens for the first time, was 
shocked by hearing her guide exclaim, on her en- 
trance upon sight-seeing in this ancient city, " Be- 
hold the new gas-works ! " Just as I was coming 
in sight of the ivy-mantled towers of the pictur- 



yo TANNING TRADE. 

esque ruins of the castle of Kenilworth, after a 
beautiful cross-country walk from the charming 
Spa city of Leamington, a brisk young English- 
man asked me if I would not like to look into his 
tannery. I was at that moment lingering at the 
gate of his tan-yard, looking up at the immense 
chimneys belonging to it. English laws require 
that all her steam factories shall have very tall 
chimneys. The tanner seemed to know at once 
that I was from the United States ; and, pointing 
out his tall stacks, he asked me if we had any finer 
chimneys than those in America. One word led 
to another, and I was soon up to my eyes in tan- 
pits, though almost within a stone's throw of. one 
of the finest bits of ruins in all England. The 
proprietor said that he had been much troubled 
by American competition. Leather from United 
States tanneries had been pouring into the Lon- 
don and Liverpool markets, depressing the prices 
for his product. 

Old-fashioned tanning has also been suffering 
in England, during recent years, from the intro- 
duction of short processes of turning out leather 
by the use of various substitutes for oak bark. 
Tawing had also encroached upon tanning. There 
have been many large failures of tanners who had 
clung tenaciously to the old methods which kept 
the hides so long in the vats. The whole business 
is now in a transition state throughout the entire 






ENGLISH AND AMERICAN TANNERIES. 



kingdom. Tanners must adopt all the modern 
improvements, or go to the wall. England imports 
annually one and a half million hundred weight 
of hides, and her home crop of the same is large. 
These are food for her own tanneries. But every 
year witnesses an increase of importations of 
leather into the kingdom. The United States is 
a heavy shipper. Many an American who buys a 
sole-leather trunk in London, because he wishes to 
possess a genuine oak-tanned article of English 
origin, gets a trunk made of good American- 
tanned leather. And many of the boots and shoes 
bought in England by American travellers, who 
suppose they are buying goods made entirely of 
leather tanned in England, are deceived in the 
same way as the trunk buyers. 

These are some points that came out as I 
chatted with the man of leather. All about me 
were methods and machinery, and an aroma that 
carried me by association three thousand miles 
New Englandward ; for I was standing in the 
midst of tan-pits, curriers' shops, and bark-mills 
that were precisely like those so common fifty 
years ago in almost every New England town. 

Like so many English institutions and methods 
which oar fathers copied, the original was before 
me unchanged ; while the copies had gone down 
before the march of American improvements. 
The small back-country tanning and currying cs- 



72 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN TANNERIES. 

tablishments of the New England of old times 
have, to a great extent, been consolidated into 
great tanneries in other localities, where all the 
modern accelerating processes have introduced 
aromas other than those of oak and hemlock bark. 
The laborers about me in the English tannery- 
were, in appearance, very like those of the same 
occupation in the old New England tannery ; and 
it is a coincidence that their hours of labor, habits 
of eating and wa<res, were of the kind common in 
the United States in the old days. 

The oak used in the old-fashioned tanneries of 
England comes mostly from the oaks on the estates 
of the kingdom. I found that the nobility and 
gentry very generally counted on getting quite a 
revenue from sales of this product of their forests. 
I have several times lingered by the roadside, and 
talked with the bark men as they were slowly 
(they do most things slowly in agricultural Eng- 
land) stacking the bark under the shadow of the 
magnificent old trees on some gentleman's home 
park, or piling it upon some heavy, lumbering old 
cart for conveyance to neighboring tanneries. 

An apt illustration of the stupidity of the aver- 
age English laborer comes to mind in connection 
with these bark recollections. I was never quite 
able to find out just what good merchantable oak 
bark was worth in England, for the reason that 
these " chaw-bacons " could tell me only that they 



CANALS. 73 

believed it brought so much a "load." And they 
could give me no idea of how much in cord quan- 
tity a load was. I struck the same snag of Eng- 
lish stupidity in many other, premises which I 
endeavored to investigate. 

Canals are very numerous in England ; and, 
though they have fallen behind in the race in 
which steam has been a competitor, it is a curious 
fact that, in the see-saw of time, canals are again 
in England coming up, while steam is actually 
getting depressed. After having been in England 
for a long time partially eclipsed, the canal shows 
signs of reaching its former importance and useful- 
ness. There are to-day 20,000 canal-boats plying 
on English canals, many of them being in the 
hands of share companies which farm them out of 
the canal corporations. Only 8,000 of these 20,000 
boats are registered, for the registration act is not 
compulsory in its requirements. And it is loudly 
complained by the canal philanthropists of Eng- 
land that on these 12,000 unregistered canal-boats 
50,000 men, women and children spend their lives 
in gypsy-like ignorance and filth. On English 
canals, says George Smith of Coalville, the great 
canal-boat missionary-in-chief, are 30,000 children, 
growing up in ignorance of every thing except 
steering a canal-boat, and driving its horses. 

It has been said that one cannot get over fifteen 



74 CANALS. 

miles from navigable water in any part of England. 
There are in the kingdom about 2,200 miles of 
canal proper, and over 1,300 miles of rivers that 
have been improved into a canal sort of naviga- 
tion. In regard to the small, slow-moving rivers 
of England that have, as it were, been partially 
turned into canals, I must remark that, in many 
cases, I found it difficult to distinguish the rivers 
that are used as canals from the canals themselves. 
At the close of a long walk across country of 
forty miles, in a ramble in one of the midland 
counties, in the lovely English month of May, I 
found myself, as the sun went down, approaching 
a remarkably quiet old village, built mostly upon 
a hillside along the banks of a canal that had once 
been one of England's great inland water routes, 
but which had now nearly fallen into disuse. 
There were all about the decrepit old town signs 
of better and busier days. Here were long rows 
of store-houses unoccupied and going to ruin, 
wharves rotten and half fallen, skeletons of old 
canal-boats stranded along the water-side, and 
dwelling-houses that had once been the homes of 
merchants who had transacted a canal business, 
and lonely houses that had once been inns to 
which the canal traffic had brought large custom. 
Over all the village there hung an air of desertion 
and decay, forming a picture of desolation and 
hopelessness such as I have never elsewhere seen. 






A DECAYING TOWN. 75 



* * 



England is a great place for bee-keeping. The 
mild, equable climate of the country, and the 
luxurious growth of both wild and cultivated flow- 
ers everywhere observable in the growing seasons 
of the year, favor the life and labors of the honey- 
bee. I shall ever carry with me, as one of the 
sweetest and sunniest recollections of my early 
summer rambles in rural England, a simple break- 
fast, and a subsequent garden walk and talk I had 
with a venerable cottager, the wife of a farm 
laborer, near Stratford-on-Avon. She was a ten- 
ant upon the estates of the Lucys, — the Lucys of 
Shakespeare's time, whose descendants still occupy 
the broad lands over which Shakespeare wandered 
in his young days, — and she was a keeper of many 
hives of bees, which she showed me with a deal of 
pleasure as we strayed about the flower-crowned 
southern slope of her fields which stretched Strat- 
fordward behind her cottage. And at her table I 
was offered bread of her own make, honey, and 
milk and eggs from her own hired farm ; and, in 
the end, beer from Stratford-on-Avon, — a town 
which was more famous among the laborers in its 
vicinity for the beer brewed there than for the 
Shakespeare born and buried there. The beer 
drinkers of the country about Stratford claim that 
Stratford has water wonderfully well adapted for 
the production of excellent beer. 



J6 BEE-KEEPING. 

But though beehives — particularly the conical 
hive of straw made familiar to us by many an 
English picture — are a common sight in England, 
the habit of placing honey upon the table to be 
eaten with bread seemed less common than in 
America, where honey has well-nigh become an 
exotic. Bee-keeping, like many other domestic pro- 
ductive interests, receives systematic and organ- 
ized encouragement from associations established 
for that purpose. That wonderfully lively and 
public-spirited lady, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, 
is president of the British Bee-keepers' Associa- 
tion, — a society which annually holds, at the Duke 
of Wellington Riding School in London, a great 
exhibition of bees, honey, hives, etc., at which is 
given, at stated intervals, instructions in the art of 
bee-keeping. It is a curious fact that the honey- 
bee ("the white man's fly," the American Indians 
used to call it) was never known in this country 
till brought here from England ; and, though they 
are now found in all parts of the country, they did 
not reach California till 1850, and South America 
till 1845. 

I found a practice in bee-keeping prevalent in 
Scotland which seemed novel to me. Early in 
August they transport the hives to the heath- 
covered tracts, and there let them remain while 
the heath flower is in bloom. Honey is on sale 
in Edinburgh known as heath-flower honey. Col- 



BEE- KEEPING. J 7 

lections of forty or fifty hives may sometimes be 
seen in Edinburgh under the care of a single per- 
son, who is superintending their transportation in 
spring-carts to the heath-fields. 

I have mentioned the common use in England 
of the old-fashioned conical straw hive. I shall 
not soon forget the first time I saw a little stock 
of these hives ranged for sale at the door of a 
small shop in an old market town in rural Eng- 
land. The sight carried me back to the English 
story-reading days of my childhood ; and I lingered 
a while with the old beehive maker, and learned 
his trade and his prices. The sweet white clover 
abounds in England, and the bees among it make 
the sweetest honey. I found that the old-time 
idea, that bees will not travel much over a mile 
from their hives, prevails in England ; and the 
hives themselves are made to travel, as I have de- 
scribed, on easy-going tip-carts, somewhat as in 
Egypt they are to-day floated along the Nile from 
flower-field to flower-field. While riding in a dog- 
cart with an Englishman in Chester, I was sur- 
prised to see him stop at an inn, and order beer 
for his horse, which beer the horse drank from a 
pail. I was afterwards more surprised to learn 
that the Englishman's everlasting beer was fed, 
with boiled sugar, to his bees. 

Any one who has been a constant reader of 



J% ENGLISH IMBECILES. 

" Punch," has no need to travel up and down Eng- 
land with me to discover that the traditional, in- 
grained, agricultural laborer of the country is, in 
very many cases, so stupid, so ignorant, so devoid 
of all ambition to get out of the plough-ruts in 
which he and his progenitors have been travelling 
like cattle for many hundred years, as to rank, in 
the mind of the careful observer, only a shade 
above the domestic beasts among which his life 
has all been spent. 

I walked and talked with these English hinds, 
and can testify that I never met, in my own coun- 
try, outside of the imbecile asylums, so stupid, so 
stolid and stunted a class of human beings. They 
have a dialect of their own, which the stranger 
can hardly understand ; a smock-frock sort of an 
attire which has been in fashion for a hundred 
years ; and a way of life, as regards work and play, 
and general home habits, that is the same as was 
their fathers' and grandfathers'. 

There are, however, lower depths of human un- 
intellectuality in England than this. Underneath 
this last-named class is to be found a set of men 
and women that is the natural outgrowth (down- 
ward) of the stupid hind class. These are a sort 
of "innocents," who wander about the country 
roads in a state bordering upon complete imbecil- 
ity, and are saved from starvation by the charity 
of those who have pity for these unfortunates. 



IMBECILE ASYLUMS. 79 

Downright imbeciles are cared for in England, to 
a large extent, in her immense imbecile asylums. 
And these institutions have to be large and nu- 
merous to accommodate the stunted imbeciles 
abounding in crowded old England. I call to 
mind, in illustration of the character of these es- 
tablishments, one of the largest of them located in 
Watford, — a town which I passed through on my 
pedestrian excursion from London to Oxford. It 
contains two thousand chronic imbeciles who are 
under the charge of Dr. Case, an eminent medical 
man, and who are maintained at a net expense of 
twenty cents a day. 

* 
Wandering theatres are a marked feature in 

English rural life. I have many times happened 
upon little companies of humble travelling actors 
and actresses, with their modest stocks of proper- 
ties, wardrobes, etc., prepared to set up, in some 
cases, a temporary theatre in those hamlets and 
villages which seemed to promise them paying 
patronage. 

This extemporized exhibition-room was some- 
times a tent which they carried with them ; and 
sometimes a house on wheels, in which they trav- 
elled and lived, simply extended a little when made 
to serve as show-room. A still more humble class 
of strolling performers are those jugglers, acrobats, 
and sleight-of-hand artists, whose home at night is 



80 STROLLING ACTORS. 

the cheapest inn to be had, and whose stage and 
audience-room is any available patch of ground 
they may seize upon, in a locality likely to call 
around them a paying group of spectators. 

I was standing in a crowd which was waiting in 
Epping Forest for the coming of the Queen, when 
a sad-looking man, accompanied by a little boy 
about twelve, appeared upon the scene, and, 
spreading upon the ground an old threadbare piece 
of carpet, opened his exhibition. It was the same 
old story, — a phase of the life of the strolling per- 
former which has so often been pictured in Eng- 
lish tales, and which I saw again and again at fairs, 
horse-races and market-gatherings. 

I was struck by the real professional merit of 
the little exhibition, by the dreary and sad aspect 
of the performers, and by the apparently meagre 
receipts when the cap went its round among the 
spectators. 

The entertainment was of the usual type. The 
funny boy was kicked and banged about, and made 
to perform wonderful feats in balancing and tum- 
bling ; and, when the man had exhausted the acro- 
batic part of his resources, he gave some wonderful 
individual exhibitions in the way of fire-eating, 
sleight-of-hand, etc. 

In 1879 Parliament enacted that no child under 
fourteen should be allowed to go through any per- 
formance whereby life or limb could be endan- 



CRUELTY TO CHILDREN. 8 1 

gered. But this law has not, in the opinion of its 
friends, answered the purpose for which it was in- 
tended. And now, under the lead of that vener- 
able philanthropist, the Earl of Shaftesbury, they 
are moving for a passage of a more stringent enact- 
ment of the same general character, which has, 
among other additional safeguards, a restriction 
placing the prohibited age at under sixteen, and 
obliging these youthful performers to attend school 
a portion of their time. 

At the parliamentary committee hearings on this 
proposed bill, a mass of the most painful testimony 
has been presented, showing that the old-time 
methods and machinery of this business are still 
in full blast ; taking wretched children of a tender 
age and treating them in the most inhuman man- 
ner, inasmuch as one who had been conversant 
with the system for a lifetime testified that eigh- 
teen out of twenty of these performers who escape 
fatal accidents are obliged to wear pads and ban- 
dages, the result of sprains or falls, and that every 
accident that occurs is, if possible, hushed up, and 
kept from the public. 

The United Kingdom is giving a deal of atten- 
tion, at the present time, to the matter of forestry. 
And well it may. From being one of the best 
wooded countries of Europe, it has come into the 
condition of being, with a single exception, more 



TREE PLANTING. 



thinly clad than any of them. Reafforesting 
now being entered upon in many parts of England 
with vigor and system. It has been sharply said 
by an able writer, that humanity signalized its 
sudden leap of material progress in the nineteenth 
century by springing, axe in hand, at the throats 
of the forests throughout the globe. And in no 
land was there more rapid and more severe gash- 
ing than in Great Britain. In my long and exten- 
sive rambles in rural England, my observations 
fully convinced me of this. I found few, very few, 
natural forests there. The woods that crowned 
the hills, and ornamented the parks of the great 
estates of the nobility and gentry, were woods 
that had been planted, — were not natural forests, 
but plantations. And in these private parks great 
care is often taken to keep up the artificial groves. 

I saw the portable steam saw-mill at work in 
many a park, but wherever it mowed a path 
through the woods, that path was likely soon to 
become a nursery of young saplings that were to 
be carefully trained to fill the gaps made by the 
saws. 

I can remember seeing few more beautiful sights 
in Scotland than the views I had in springtime 
of the forest-crowned hills round about Melrose. 
These forests were plantations, and in the work 
of reafforesting Scotland, Sir Walter did more 
than any man of his time. He made his power 



„ 



EXTENT OF FORESTS. 8$ 

in the matter felt by means of his social influence 
and his literary labors, and he also did a deal to 
help along the business of tree-planting by his 
own practical example. The traveller finds Ire- 
land, whose log-packed bogs show her to have once 
been a thickly-wooded land, now well denuded of 
forests. An earnest effort is to-day being made 
there, by many of Ireland's best friends, to replant 
her waste and well-nigh worthless lands with forest 
trees. Of the twenty millions of acres of land in 
Ireland, at least five millions of acres are waste 
lands, which might, it is claimed, be profitably 
planted with trees, — planted, says that high au- 
thority, Dr. Lyons, with conifers, deciduous and 
hard-wood trees, and many sorts of bushes. 

There are yet nearly three-quarters of a million 
of acres of land in Scotland under forest growth, 
though Scotland has allowed her tree-lands to be 
reduced. India has to-day seventy-five thousand 
square miles of forests, and it is a singular fact 
that the forestry of that distant possession of the 
British empire is placed upon a better basis than 
that of any European country. 

More than twenty-five thousand square miles of 
forests in India have been placed directly under 
the care of the most scientific system of forest 
management. This advanced and most sagacious 
care of one of India's greatest sources of wealth 
is owing to the fact that England has sent to that 



84 EXTENT OF FORESTS. 

country the most accomplished of administrators, 
and given them the widest sweep of power over a 
people whose ignorant prejudices they are not 
obliged to consult or yield to. 

One of the most successful instrumentalities in 
this work of preservation of the trees has been 
the Society for the Preservation of Open Spaces 
for the enjoyment of the people. Aided by private 
contributions, and grants from public sources, this 
society has wrested from the hands of greedy 
speculators and land-hungry noblemen, some of 
the finest fields and forests, and set them apart to 
be forever the pleasure-grounds of the people. 

One of their latest and most valuable acqui- 
sitions has been that of those grand old Burn- 
ham Beeches, near Stoke-Pogis, whose venerable 
branches have so often sheltered the scholars and 
poets whose names have been associated with 
them, and whose curious old hollow trunks and 
gnarled limbs have been such objects of interest 
to the many Americans who have visited them. 

The work of preservation in question has also 
been greatly aided by an act of Parliament, passed 
in 1872, to run thirty years, which levied a duty of 
three-sixteenths of a penny per hundred weight 
on all grain brought into the port of London, and 
enacted that the duty so raised should be used 
for the preservation of open spaces in the neigh- 
borhood of London. 



USES OF TIMBER. 85 

London has, out of the tax thus raised, paid for 
Epping Forest, containing 5300 acres ; Wanstead 
Park, 183 acres; Burnham Beeches, 373 acres; 
Coulson Common, 347 acres ; West Ham Park, 
76 acres ; and also maintained St Paul's church- 
yard in a condition adapting it for public use. 

England's consumption of timber, especially of 
the harder woods, is immense. I found that its 
greatest source of foreign supply was the north- 
ern countries of Europe, which were separated by 
only narrow waters from the shores of the British 
Isles. It is a far cry to the timber lands of 
America, yet vast quantities of American oak are 
brought across the North Atlantic to supply Eng- 
lish demands. 

At those immense repair and construction shops 
of the Midland Railway, a road that has in its 
rolling stock fourteen hundred locomotives, the 
American traveller can notice, with satisfaction, 
great piles of American oak in store for use in 
car and locomotive building. I made many a tim- 
i ber note as I wandered about England. Among 
the lakes I talked with woodmen who, in those 
romantic regions, were busy getting out of coppice 
stock-bobbins, etc., for the cotton-spinners of 
Manchester and Bradford. 

In the black country I chatted with mill-men 
who were turning out, by the cord, from English 
oak, handles for picks to be used by the miners. 



86 SA W-PITS. 

I asked them why they did not import these han- 
dles ready made from America. 

They replied, in the tone of genuine English 
prejudice, that they had tried invoices of them at 
the mines, and found they were not good for any 
thing. At Hatfield House, the baronial hall of 
Lord Salisbury, I saw fireplaces of the largest 
size, where the tall andirons were loaded with big 
sticks of wood which had been cut in Hatfield 
parks, and which were all ready to be set ablaze 1 
as soon as my lord came up from London and the 
House of Lords. 

On the Thames at London, and on its branch at? 
Oxford, I took a look at the woods that went into 
the constructions of the boats in use there, and 
found cedar and mahogany the favorite materials. 

While wandering about rural old England, I 
often saw a sight that reminded me of the primi- 
tive days of New England. It was that of a 
couple of stalwart men, sawing logs into planks 
and boards by hand. One man stood above the 
log ; the other, in a saw-pit below it. So they 
would work hard at this slow, wearisome business 
day after day ; and I sometimes saw, as I passed 
by the houses of laborers of this kind, where they 
had left their task for the day, the saw resting in 
the partly-sawed log, the finishing of which would 
take many days. 

The most of this tedious and old-fashioned saw- 



CROWDED GRAVEYARDS. 8 J 

ing was done upon the hard-wood logs that had 
been obtained from the plantations of the nobility 
and gentry ; for these two classes, who own most 
of the wood land in England, sell from their parks 
all the trees they can spare, planting a new tree 
whenever an old one is cut down and removed. 
The trees most frequently made subject to this 
home-sawing are oak and elm ; and the uses to 
which the boards, etc., which were the result of 
the sawing, were put, were in the making of carts 
and wagons, and the construction of coffins. 

The elm is the hard-wood of England that is 
the most used for this coffin work ; and so often 
did I see, as I walked the rural highways and by- 
ways, huge elm logs prone by the roadside, that 
had been selected for the coffin-maker, and so 
often did I see coffin-makers at work sawing these 
logs into boards for coffins, that I began to think 
that in rural England coffin-making was one of 
the leading mechanical industries. 

The dense population on every hand, and the 
even more densely populated graveyards all about 
me as I travelled, very naturally tended to confirm 
this impression. I have never anywhere, if I 
make an exception of some portions of Paris's 
great cemetery of Pere le Chaise, seen such 
crowded graveyards as I have seen in the oldest 
portions of rural England. 

Perhaps the best illustration of the way the 



38 COFFIN-MAKING. 

graveyards of the old villages of England are 
actually crammed with graves may be seen in 
the burial ground at Haworth, where the family of 
the Brontes lie buried, — a graveyard which has 
been occupied as such for hundreds of years, and 
where every foot of land has been over and over 
appropriated for graves. And, at times, it seemed 
to me, as I reflected on the great age and popu- 
lousness of England, as if it was all one vast grave- 
yard. In London alone, about twelve hundred 
persons are borne to the graveyards every week. 
These country-made coffins of old English elm of 
which I have made mention are made of the shape 
and by the same class of mechanics, that they wen 
made in old New England before the advent o 
the modern factory-made coffin and casket. 

In the rural districts in many parts of Englanc 
to-day the village carpenter comes and measures 
the body of the dead, and then bends speedily tol 
the work of making by hand the old-patterned' 
coffin of elm. One old English village carpenter 
told me how he had measured and coffined hun- ; 
dreds of his departed neighbors. The price paid 
for a plain elm coffin of the style and shape I 
have described is about twenty shillings. From 
this style and price, there is an indefinite range 
upwards ; for many of these coffins of elm are! 
richly covered with cloth, and adorned with plate. 
And while speaking of the fact that the old 



COFFIN-MAKING. 89 

1 1 fashioned English coffin is of that peculiar shape, 
— that is, long and narrow, with a swelling width 
near the head, — I am reminded that I saw, in the 

1 church-yard at Dryburgh Abbey in Scotland, a 

1 gravestone, upon which were the usual inscrip- 
tions, which was made in the precise shape of one 
of these coffins. Standing upright at the head of 
the grave, it appeared as if the actual coffin of the 

[ dead had been planted there in that erect position, 
instead of being buried ; and the effect was very 
startling. 

There have been shipments made to Great Brit- 
ain of American caskets and coffins in nests, but 
these shipments have not been at all successful. 
Not if the Englishman knows himself will he be 
buried in such a new-fangled notion as a factory- 
made American coffin or casket, and these mort- 
uary goods found no sale in his country. 

A London undertaker, who has lately been visit- 
ing the United States, has expressed himself as 
very much surprised at the great improvements 
that had here been made in goods in his line, and 
was also surprised that his countrymen do not 
better appreciate these American products. A 
Boston dealer in mortuary goods not long ago 
imported from Sheffield, England, quite a quantity 
of adornments and trimmings for coffins that had 
been made there, and he found them so clumsy 
and tasteless that they could not be sold. 



90 OSIER HO ITS. 

OSIER HOLTS. 

In going from Barnet to Epping Forest, whither 
I went to see the good Queen throw open that vast 
common, — throw it open for the perpetual use of 
the laboring classes of England, who had been 
gradually deprived of their privileges in it by the 
encroachments of the nobility and gentry, — I for 
the first time passed through a series of fields 
devoted to a sort of farming with which I had had 
no previous acquaintance. This was the cultiva- 
tion of osier beds. These beds are not so exten-l 
sive in England as in Germany and France, but J 
the same methods are used in England, and about;, 
the same product obtained. 

An osier bed is simply a bed of small willows,! 
but the willow grown for osiers is of a different! 
class from our common willow. There are, said \ 
an old willow-cultivator to me, more than. one hun- 
dred and twenty-five different kinds of willows. 
I leave this unendorsed statement for the consid- 
eration of botanists. What he denominated the 
red willow, he deemed the best osier. The osier 
grows best in fenny places, and flourishes well 
where the ground is a part of the time sub- 
merged. I saw little islands in the Thames de- 
voted to the culture of the osier. Osier holts is 
the name given in England to the osier plots. 

These osier holts are started by putting down 



WICKER COFFINS. 9 1 

little cuttings of the willow quite near together. 
The first year the growth of the osier does not 
amount to much. But afterwards they are good 

I for a crop, with no cultivation of any account, for 
from ten to twenty years. Planted thus closely, 

, in moist places, this little red osier sends up its 

; delicate shoots to the height of from five to ten 
feet. These shoots are cut from November to 

j April, when the sap has descended to the roots, 
and they are equally good when cut in any of 

; these months. After cutting, the twigs are placed 
under water till May or June, in which situation 
they throw out leaves, at the foliage season, the 
same as if they still clung to the parent roots. 
Then they are carefully peeled by a small hand- 
machine, dried, and packed away in bundles, such 
as we see in the hands of the osier-dealers in Lon- 
don and New York, and which weigh about fifty 
pounds each. Out of these delicate little white 
rods — comely, clean, and tough — an almost end- 
less variety of things have been made, and are 
to-day being made. 

Extraordinary attention is being paid to-day in 
England to the subject of burials; and the ear- 
nest opponents of intramural interments, and in- 
terments in tombs, and brick graves, who have 
from the first been firm advocates of simple burial 
in plain graves in the earth, have, in some in- 
stances, gone a step further, and proclaimed them- 



9 2 WICKER COFFINS. 

selves in favor of the use in these burials of wicker 
coffins. 

A company which has been formed in London 
for the purpose of introducing these wicker coffins 
advertises them in "The London Times" as the 
only coffin in which the dead in populous lands 
can be buried without detriment or danger to the 
living. "Bury me," said a ruddy and strong man, 
with whom I was discussing the subject of wicker 
coffins, — "when I am dead, bury me in an earth, 
to-earth wicker coffin, so that I may get out agairfj 
into God's pure air just as soon as possible." 

An aged German basket-maker, who worked 
mainly upon the willow osier, showed me a fine 
large wicker coffin he had made. Nothing entered! 
into its construction but willow rods. It was of " 
regular coffin shape, but, in all other points, it' 
reminded one of a basket, —and simply a basket-] 
coffin it was. Neat, sweet, and attractive wast 
this casket made of the fragrant willow osier, and 
as I looked upon it I felt like re-echoing the senti- 
ment of its impulsive advocate whom I have just 
quoted. And I also thought well of the sugges- 
tion made by the maker of this willow basket- 
coffin, that when put to actual use no cloth of silk 
or woollen, no mortuary ornaments of any sort be 
added to it, but that the mortal remains laid to 
rest within it be supplied only with a pure, soft 
pillow of shavings of the white willow or fragrant 
nine. 



USES OF OSIER. 93 

Willow caskets, of the sort I have described, 
have been used in a few instances in American 
burials ; and there are here mechanics in wicker- 
work who are ready to make a willow coffin comely 
and perfect in construction as any on sale in Lon- 
don. And the osiers themselves, out of which 
such a variety of pretty things can be made, can 
be grown most successfully in this country. I 
have seen beds of them here in a flourishing con- 
dition, grown from cuttings brought from England. 

Our American wicker-workers have also some- 
times gathered from the wild willows growing on 
our farms, and in the moist places by the roadside, 
the slender roots that shoot out from these trees 
in such luxuriance and beauty ; but, though some 
use may be made of them, they are far too brittle 
for the nicest work. 

The finest osiers I have seen in use in this 
country were imported from Germany and France. 
In those countries great attention is given to their 
production, and out of willow a vast variety of 
I articles are made. One can see, on the Continent, 
carriages made entirely of wicker-work, with the 
exception of the wheels. 

The use of the willow rods dates back to the 

very earliest days. They have, in old times, been 

I used in architecture, and shields for the soldier 

have been made of them. In some countries the 

osier has been woven so deftly and closely as to 



94 THE LICH-GATE. 

make water-tight vessels for domestic use ; and 
boats, gates, hats, sledges and shoes have been 
made of them. 

But it is only in our own days that these supple 
and tough little twigs have been called upon to 
make a house for the dead. 

THE LICH-GATE. 

The old English name of the main or principal 
gate to the church-yard is the lich-gate. The word 
lich, which is of Anglo-Saxon origin, signifies a 
dead body or corpse, and the lich gate-way of the 
graveyard is that through which the body of the 
dead is borne for burial. 

In one of those disgraceful contests which have 
of late years so often taken place between Eng- 
lish vicars and nonconformists in regard to burial 
rights, this word lich-gate has been called into 
English courts. It was my habit, wherever I wan- 
dered in old England, to enter the old church-yards 
that fell in my way, if time permitted me to linger 
by the way-side. And I never found the lich-gate 
fastened. In fact, the lich-gate was generally no 
gate at all, but an ever-open passage-way. But it 
seems this way is often shut, by the ruling vicar, 
in the face of that awful modern heretic, the Dis- 
senter. The new burial laws endeavor to forbid 
this, but, somehow or other, these bigoted vicars 



S TEE PL E-JA CKS. 9 5 

fly in the face of these statutes, or evade them 
In the sad case I have in mind, the nearest rela- 
tive of a deceased Nonconformist gave notice to 
the vicar of Harlow that she should claim the 
right to bury her mother within the gray old walls 
of the parish church-yard, without the use of the 
rites of the Established Church. The grave was 
dug, but the vicar said the body should not be 
taken through the lich-gate, but must enter by 
some other way. And by one of these minor 
gate-ways the dead body was finally borne to its 
last resting-place. 

* 
The term steeple-jack is applied to men who 

make a trade of ascending tall chimneys and 
spires, for the purpose of repairing them, or to 
prepare the way for the ascent to their summits 
of mechanics who can do the needful work in the 
high places. The professional steeple-jack's usual 
mode of getting to the top of a tall chimney is by 
the kite method. Taking advantage of desirable 
wind and weather, he skilfully sends up his large 
kite by the side of the chimney, and coaxes it 
over its top. Then it is allowed to descend to the 
ground on the opposite side, carrying behind it, 
all the time, a small string. When a ground con- 
nection is made with the small cord, the principal 
work is clone. A large rope is then attached to 
the little line, and drawn over the chimney, and 



g6 TALL CHIMNEYS. 

made fast at both ends to the ground. On this 
the steeple-jack climbs to the top of the chimney 
as best he can, — perhaps hand-over-hand, or with 
blocks. And, when there, he either does the nec- 
essary repairs himself, or brings up an artisan to 
help him. The occupation is necessarily a hazard- 
ous one, and I have heard of several instances 
where these climbers had been killed by falling 
from great heights. An English brick-layer, who 
had often worked at the top of tall chimneys, said 
the steeple-jack often took weeks in getting his 
kite and strings over a tall chimney. 

These tall factory chimneys are always built up 
from the inside, without the use of any staging. 
I was told by a Lancashire man, who had worked 
on many of them, that there was a regulation in 
his country, which is one of the greatest manufact- 
uring districts in the world, that no factory chim-j 
ney should be less than ninety yards in height. f 

* 
One of the sweetest of my memories of Eng- 
land — rural England, in particular — is the mem- 
ory of its chiming bells. How often, at the close 
of a long ramble, have I, on entering some quiet 
village, whose long single street and ancient ivy- 
crowned stone church I was seeing for the first 
time, been charmed and well-nigh spell-bound as / 
the sound of the chimes came to my ear. In this 
country nearly all our churches in town and coun- 



BELL-R L \ 'G/A r G. 97 

try have bells. In England all churches have 
chimes of bells. In English country churches 
these chimes are rung, as a side occupation, by 
some artisan, or other laboring man ; and for his 
musical work he receives what we should here 
deem a very light remuneration. He chimes his 
bells for church services on Sunday ; for jubilation 
service on gala-days and holidays. His chimes 
are also called for when weddings occur, and on 
special occasions ; as, for instance, when the rector 
has a party. And in preparation for these duties, 
and also in preparation for chiming-matches, the 
bell-ringer does a deal of practising. And this 
practising was what oftenest struck my ear as, at 
close of day, I lingered under the shadow of the 
gray old churches. 

The bell-matches of which I have spoken, and 
which are a very common thing in England, are 
conducted just like any other contests of skill. 
After due preparation, the competing belfries 
ring out their notes upon the listening ears of the 
duly elected judges, and the best chimes and 
chimers win the prize. I have said all English 
churches have chimes. All rules have exceptions. 
I suppose some of the meeting-houses must be 
without them, for I have heard a curious Lincoln- 
shire story of this sort : A traveller, once passing 
through Messingham on Sunday, saw three men 
sitting on the stile in the church-yard, shouting, 



98 SCRIPTURE READERS. 

" Come to church, Thompson ; come to church, 
Jones ; come to church, Brown ; " and so on. 
And he was informed that, having no bell on their 
church, that way of calling together a Sunday con- 
gregation was the regular Sunday programme. 

Scripture readers are a great institution in Eng- 
land. They constitute a regular, recognized relig- 
ious organization which is patronized by some 
of the most prominent laymen belonging to the 
nobility and gentry, and, with the other great 
religious bodies, hold great anniversary meetings 
in London in May. I used to fall in with many 
of these patient laborers as I wandered about the 
United Kingdom, and I had many a talk with 
them about their ways of work. They dress in a 
plain suit of black, and resemble, in their dress 
and address, the regular clergy. 

As I travelled about England, I discovered many 
peculiar features in the Englishman's way of ob- 
serving the Sabbath. Good society is supposed 
to attend the Established Church. But I am con- 
fident that not more than one-tenth of the peo- 
ple attend any church. Church accommodations 
abound ; but I seldom entered an Episcopal place 
of worship, in city or country, that was not thinly 
attended. 

The phantom congregations of the old churches 
in London made such an impression on my mind 
that my Sunday visits to those places of worship 



CHURCH ATTENDANCE. 99 

seem now like ghostly dreams. I have before me 
the authority of an English bishop for the state- 
ment that many of these London churches only 
secure a "quorum" of hearers by paying them a 
dole to attend, just as London boards of bank 
and insurance direction pay the ornamental lords 
of their management a guinea a time for attend- 
ance. 

"The London Times " says that there is not in 
existence a business, social, or political organiza- 
tion that so completely fails of reaching the ends 
aimed at as the Church of England. And in the 
many church congresses of England whose dis- 
i cussions I have studied, this declaration of "The 
Times " has been endorsed by advanced thinkers 
in the clergy. All sorts of measures of reform in 
church methods have been broached. But the 
most curious plan I have noted, and one that gives 
a vivid insight into the average English idea of 
Sunday, is that described by Archdeacon Denison 
as having been operated by him with complete 
success. He said he had gotten up a Sunday 
cricket club, the object of which was to give his 
worshippers a chance to have a game of cricket 
on grounds near the church between the services 
on Sunday. One is reminded, by this scheme, of 
the story told of the muscular cricket-playing 
English preacher who closed one division of his 
morning church-service with, " Here endeth the 
second innings." 



IOO CHURCH-GOING. 

The great mass of the English people do not go 
to church. The attendance among the well-to-do 
classes is greater than among the agricultural 
laborers, artisans, etc. I gave some little atten- 
tion to the church-going question while travelling 
about England. At home I heard a great variety 
of opinions on the matter, and I wished to see for 
myself. 

In city and country in England, as in the United 
States, a very small percentage of the people 
attend public religious worship on Sunday, — at- 
tend one service, and that a morning one. There, 
as well as here, there is a general abstention from 
work on Sunday. And it seemed to me that in 
England there was more thoughtfulness on the 
part of employers of household servants of all 
types in the matter of giving them Sunday for 
rest than there is here. Good society does not 
go to drive on Sunday in England. It is there 
deemed a very improper thing to deprive the 
coachmen and the other stable employes of their 
Sunday, — or, at least, to deprive them of more of 
it than is absolutely necessary for service in the 
matter of getting the families to church in the 
morning. There is an active society in London 
called the " Lord's Day Observance Society." 

The drift of its teachings and labors is illus- 
trated in the following interesting advertise- 
ment : — 



SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. IOI 

SUNDAY POST. — In order that deserving letter-carriers and 
other postal officers may not be deprived of their birthright 
r of a weekly rest-day, please neither to receive letters nor to post 
1 letters for delivery on the Lord's Day. If living in the country, 
I give orders to the Postmaster not to deliver your letters on Sun- 
day. — Vide Post-office Guide, pp. 18, 19. 

Lord's Day Observance Society, 20, Bedford Street. 

On Sundays, particularly in the after part of 
jthe day, the roads leading out of London that are 
1 the highways to places of popular resort in the 
suburbs are thronged with pedestrians belonging 
to the class of tradesmen's clerks, shop-keepers 
and mechanics of the better order. 
'1 And on that day the costermonger, who keeps 
a horse and gig, takes it out of the treadmill of 
week-day shop-work, puts his wife and children 
into it, and makes a dash into the rural districts. 
1 In the manufacturing districts the average artisan 
idons his best clothes, and goes to church or to the 
beer-shop, the latter being open on other than 
church hours. And in many country localities 
out-of-door sports of various characters are in- 
dulged in quite freely on Sunday afternoons. 

Cheshire County, England, is a small county. 
I walked across it in going from Liverpool to 
London. Greatest length, fifty-two miles ; great- 
est breadth, thirty-eight miles. But it is a very 
productive district. It is rich in coal and salt. 
It is a rich dairy and grazing country. It keeps 



102 A LAND OF SALT. 

a hundred and fifty thousand cows, and annually 
makes about twenty thousand tons of cheese. 
Cheese is a great food staple in England. I can 
go through the United Kingdom on a half-crown a 
day, if I put up with a diet very common there ; 
namely, bread and cheese and beer. In plodding 
through Cheshire it may be imagined that I found \ 
good Cheshire cheese on the tables at all the \ 
country inns. j 

In the heart of Cheshire are the great salt- I 
mines, which have been steadily worked since 
their discovery in 1670. Here in the little town \ 
of Nantwich and vicinity is mined and pumped V 
about all the salt used in Great Britain. The salt ' 
lies in great beds below a thick stratum of very 
hard rock, and a deal of gunpowder is used in , 
blasting the rock and rock-salt. 

Vast quantities of the Cheshire salt come to I 
the surface in the form of brine ; and, with the J 
assistance of pumps, this natural brine is placed 
in great evaporating pans, where its progress into 
solid salt is accelerated by a boiling-point heat 
from traversing steam-flues. About a hundred 
and twenty thousand tons a year of Cheshire salt 
are exported through the Mersey. The United 
States takes the largest amount of this exported 
Cheshire product, and it comes to us under the 
name of Liverpool salt. 

We are a salt-loving people. In lunching in 



WIDE-AWAKE ENGLAND. 1 03 

the vicinity of a great English salt-mine I found 
no salt in my butter ; and very little is used in 
bread, on meats, etc. Yet the beer is salted so as 
to create a thirst for more beer ! 

* 
I was whirled through a town in England whose 

rapid growth and youthfulness disabuses the 
American traveller of many of his preconceived 
ideas of modern English ways of business. The 
town was Middleborough ; which, in 1851, had a 
population of a hundred and fifty-four, and which 
to-day has a population of seventy-two thousand. 
As a village, Middleborough is of very ancient 
date ; for, in the Middle Ages, there were records 
of transfers of its town-lands to the Abbey of 
Whitby. But in the early years of the present 
century, it was simply the home of four farmers. 

And the cause of the mighty and swift growth 
of this town is also a matter of astonishment to 
me. I had always had the idea that old England 
had long ago burrowed in its soil in all directions, 
and knew to a jot just what mineral wealth was 
underlying there. But it was not till 185 1 that 
John Vaughn of Middleborough, son of a laboring 
man, and himself an iron-worker, while browsing 
around the blue hills about Middleborough in com- 
pany with John Morley, discovered the existence 
of an iron ore in well-nigh inexhaustible supply, 
which has been the foundation of the prosperity 



1 04 MID BLEB ORO UGH. 

of Middleborough, and which made Vaughn, the 
Bocklows, Peases, and others, millionaires. To- 
day Vaughn's company turns out four thousand 
tons of steel-rails a week, all made by the Thomas- 
Gilchrist process from the iron stone of Cleveland,, 
which slept, unknown and undreamed of, till the 
middle of the present century. 

The idea so commonly entertained in the United 
States that old England is stagnant and rusty 
will surely get shaken out of the head of any 
American who will wander, as I have wandered, 
among the iron, cotton, woollen and steel workers 
of the north and the heart of the kingdom. 






A HIVE OF HUMAN INDUSTRY. 

Such is Manchester, England. My stay in this 
place was short ; but I remained there long enough 
to be convinced that it was the nohsest, dirtiest, 
smokiest city on the face of the earth. It is said 
that there are in England one and a half million 
operatives in cotton factories ; that she has, hum- 
ming within her borders, nearly two hundred thou- 
sand power-looms ; and that there is annually 
imported into the kingdom three million bales of ] 
cotton. 

These are figures which astonish one ; yet, after 
a run through the spinning and weaving districts 
of England, I was ready to believe that they were 



MANCHESTER. 105 

true. And Manchester, which is the largest cot- 
ton city in the world, may be depended upon to 
consume every year a giant's share of the vast 
supply of the cotton which flows into England 
from the United States and the East. It has a 
population of about four hundred thousand, nearly 
a hundred thousand of whom are employed in her 
factories. Although her cotton manufacture is her 
leading interest, she is largely engaged in other 
industries, prominent among which are her linen, 
silk, worsted, paper, iron and chemical establish- 
ments. 

It seems to me that the factories last named 
must have a most deleterious effect upon the city, 
for I saw a most marked absence of growing grass 
and flowers within her borders. In other parts 
of England, notably near Liverpool, I have seen 
whole regions which were under the blight of 
j the fumes from vast works for the production of 
chemicals, and which presented a scene of blasted 
vegetable desolation most painful to witness. 

There are one or two points of peculiar interest 
relative to this great factory city, a city which I 
present as a typical modern manufacturing centre 
which I cannot pass over, though I willingly leave 
behind me its history and statistics. Here may 
be found, in most successful operation, the most 
perfect machinery — particularly machinery for 
spinning and weaving — that can be found in the 



y 



1 06 MANCHESTER. 

world. The machine-shops of England have, 
within the last twenty-five years, turned out cot- 
ton and worsted machinery which has found favor 
in all the spinning and weaving world. And in 
Manchester the last and best products of these 
engineering establishments are to-day busily hum- 
ming. 

But I think it quite possible that this seemingly 
perfect and well-nigh automatic machinery is low 
ering the general standard of intelligence of th 
operative, and introducing into the mills an in 
creased proportion of women and children. f 
have seen the finest machines in the best mills- 
tended by laborers of the last-named classes ; and 
if they do it as well, and at the same time at less 
wages than it can be done by men, the women 
and children will be employed. 

The avarice of parents leads to their pressing 
their children into service at the earliest possible 
age, and the consequent neglect of their physical 
and mental education. In the jails and peni- 
tentiaries of Manchester, a great majority of the 
prisoners are comparatively young persons who 
cannot read or write at all, or who are only able to 
do so most imperfectly. Another point noted in 
our representative manufacturing city of Man- 
chester comes from a glance into its hospitals. 
Here are found two classes of sufferers, who bear 
upon their persons marks of the effects of the 



SHEFFIELD RAZORS. \QJ 

machinery among which they have lived and moved, 
. — sufferers from pulmonic complaints, caused by 

the cotton and wool surcharged and overheated 

air of the power-loom and spinning-rooms ; and 
I sufferers from painful accidents from contact with 

the ever-whirling, dashing arms of iron and steel 
j of the cloth-making machines among which their 

lives have been spent. I have statistics by me 
.''bearing upon these last points which forcibly 
i Jlustrate the situation. 

* 

In entering Sheffield for the first time I could 

j think of nothing but steel and cutlery. What a 

J tremendous workshop the place is ! But if Shef- 

I field has been famous for any thing, it has been 

for its razors. 

For a very low price, say about four and a half 
pence, it turns out a scraper — razor is from the 
Latin rasus, to scrape — of the finest steel and 
the finest temper. It is believed in England that 
much of the credit of the Sheffield razor is due to 
the water of the place in which it is tempered. 
And some razor-makers in this country, who also 
had this idea, once brought all the way from Eng- 
land some Sheffield water to aid them in turning 
out the right sort of tool. But I doubt not fine 
steel, long experience, and great skill has more to 
i do with making the Sheffield razor what it is than 
has Sheffield water. 



108 THE SHEFFIELD RED- BOOK. 

In smoky, grimy Sheffield, where I saw the 
huge steel and iron works whose products have 
been so largely consumed in the United States, 
what are termed the limited manufacturing com- 
panies, whose shares have been worked off upon 
too credulous investors by the small army of " pro- 
moters " of companies for which Sheffield is quite 
noted, have had very checkered careers. The 
Sheffield Red-book, a volume devoted to the manu- 
facturing interests of the city, gives a list of about 
forty companies connected with the coal, steel and 
iron interests, whose affairs have been recently 
wound up under what is termed the Winding-up 
Act. And these failures were failures of concerns ! 
that had largely been promoted by accountants 
who had left the city, after pocketing heavy profits 
in the way of commissions for reporting. The 
losses of share-holders in Sheffield steel and iron 
companies, which are running without profit, have 
been very heavy. 

There are many instances there where companies 
have not paid a dividend for many years, and where 
these shares are as low as twenty pounds on a par 
value of a hundred pounds. The tall chimneys of 
the great shops of Joseph Rodgers & Sons, and 
the River Don Works (Vickers'), called to mind 
the story of some of the immense successes of 
Sheffield in the way of steel and iron manipula- 
tion of which these two concerns are bright exam- 



LIVERPOOL. IO9 

pies. The paid-up capital of River Don Works is 
,£750,000. The company is now worth £1,646,250. 
The Rodgers' one thousand shares are quoted at 
£2771 on a par value of £100. While thirty-five 
limited companies show a depreciation of £3,500- 
000, only fifteen out of the fifty in the Sheffield 
district show an appreciation, the aggregate of 
which is ,£1,757,625. 

* 
Liverpool is now England's great gate-way to 

her Western commerce. Her gigantic docks, and 
the ships of all nations, and the products of all 
lands which one sees there, make up one of the 
seven modern wonders of the earth. I made a 
faithful endeavor to see the clocks of Liverpool, 
and the memory of my long tramps up and down 
the banks of the Mersey is one of my most inter- 
esting recollections of English travel. 

Liverpool, said an American captain to me, Liv- 
erpool is the cesspool of the world ; for into its 
docks can be brought all the merchandise of the 
world that has been "left over," and there sold at 
some price or another, and from thence scattered 
again to all points, for it is a great point for the 
redistribution of merchandise. It is one of the 
dearest ports in the world. American captains 
are always grumbling to American travellers over 
the heavy port charges of Liverpool. Its situa- 
tion is such that it can lay a large export duty on 



IIO LIVERPOOL DUTIES. 

all the out-going products of Manchester, and 
many other of England's inland cities which have 
no outlet to the sea. I have been told that sixty 
per cent of the whole charges for freight on Man- 
chester goods bound to Calcutta are incurred 
before the merchandise is out of Liverpool harbor. 
Such a fact as this has developed a plan for a 
ship-canal from Manchester to the sea, — a plan 
which may, if carried out, inflict a most stunning 
blow upon Liverpool. Mac Iver, member of Pa. 
liament for Liverpool, fears that the Mersey will' 
in time be silted up if this canal is built, for he 
knows that this river requires a most careful and 
costly treatment in order to keep its channels 
properly navigable. He and other Liverpool op- ' 
ponents of the canal say that this great Liverpool 
may in time become another Chester, a city which 
I found one of the best to sleep in of any in Eng- 
land, if its citizens are not alert enough to head 
off Manchester's canal plan. 

* 
In York Minster, in the venerable and most 

picturesque city of York,- on Whit-Monday, May 
29, 1882, I attended a meeting of a peculiarly 
interesting character. It was a meeting of the 
York Branch of the Royal Society for the Preven- 
tion of Cruelty to Animals. It was an annual 
service for the young, which is held in this mag- 
nificent cathedral of York. A great swarm of 



YORK CA THEDRAL. 1 1 I 

English boys, belonging to some charity founda- 
tion in York, occupied the body of the audience- 
room. 

They were a ruddy and strong set of little 
fellows ; and, in their neat, becoming uniform, 
presented an attractive appearance. They sat 
through the long address in a most demure and 
quiet manner. If they did not care for it, or listen 
to it, they appeared as if they did, which made it 
all right with the speaker. The speaker was the 
Rev. F. Laurence, one of the secretaries of the 
society with the long name. His discourse was 
long, and not particularly interesting. I trust 
that I, like the great squad of charity boys, main- 
tained a demure and quiet appearance, and so also 
set myself right with the speaker, to whom I did 
not closely listen. After the services were over, 
I made a pretty close acquaintance with preacher 
Laurence's boy audience. It came about in this 
way : One of the sights of York is to ascend to 
the top of the great cathedral. From the roof a 
prospect is obtained, not only of the whole city, 
but of a vast extent of the interesting but rather 
level surrounding country. To get to this sightly 
roof of the minster, one must climb the long, 
dimly lighted and very narrow winding staircase. 
1 1 know not the number of the steps of this dark 
and stuffy passage, but I know that few tourists 
must ever care to force their way up them a sec- 



112 IN YORK CATHEDRAL. 

oncl time. On this Whit-Monday, which is a holi- 
day in England, these hundreds of robust little 
boys, who had sat through the society's lecture, 
were given a ticket to go to the top of the cathe- 
dral. This ticket actually costs a sixpence, a sum 
which they could never spare to spend for a luxury 
of this sort. I doubt not the tickets were given 
them as a sort of reward for coming to church, 
and listening so demurely. I was descending 
from a visit to the roof and towers, in company 
with quite a delegation of visitors, a large propor- 
tion of whom were Yorkshire lads and lasses, 
workers in the great mills of the region, who were 
trying to make the most of their holiday by climb- 
ing to the top of every thing in old York which 
could be climbed ; and, when about half-way down 
the narrow spiral stairway, met the crowd of 
ascending boys. They were forcing their way 
through the darkness and dust, completely occu- 
pying the old stone steps. Gradually they became 
wedged in with the party which was descending, 
and a perfect jam was the result. I was in the 
heart of the throng, and, for a while, actually 
feared that some of us would be suffocated. As 
it was, it seemed to me that nothing but the pluck 
and vigor of the little English rascals, who had 
got us into the scrape, helped us out of it. They 
finally butted and bored their way to daylight at 
the top of the cathedral. I came out of the hole 



PROTECTION OF ANIMALS. I 13 

at the bottom, feeling as if I had been dragged 
through a dirty chimney. 

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Animals — the York anniversary of which has 
recalled this reminiscence — is one of the noblest 
organizations in England. Its branches and their 
agents were to be found wherever I travelled. It 
stretches out a protecting hand over a wide range 
of domestic and wild animals, and its monthly re- 
turns of conviction show the force and success 
with which it works. 

One of these regular returns, a return cover- 
ing the whole English field, shows that, in the 
thirty days of April, 1882, there were three hun- 
dred and ninety convictions of offenders secured 
by this society ; and that, from January to March, 
1882, it had compassed 1089 convictions. 

I hastily summarized the details of one of the 
returns, for the matter is of curious interest to 
any thoughtful person. Convictions for abusing 
horses leads the list in numbers, and the offences 
against these faithful beasts are of about the same 
character as those commonly noted with us. The 
donkey outrages come next. I could but note, as 
I wandered about England, that the -numerous 
donkey " has a terribly hard time there. Being a 
tough and cheap beast, he is apt to fall into tough 
and cheap hands. I myself saw enough instances 
where he was being maltreated to put any feeling 



114 CRUELTY TO DONKEYS. 

friend of the animal into a state of frantic distress. 
I saw him beaten, thin from want of food, over- 
loaded, and working when in a generally unfit 
state. For such abuses as these, the society prose- 
cutes and convicts. Sheep, pigs, dogs, cats, ducks, 
bears and wild birds follow the donkeys on this 
list of sufferers ; and the crimes against them are, 
in these cases, much the same as those noted in 
the United States. 

One little case in point will show the sort of 
cruelty which I have seen many and many a time 
in London streets. 

His name was Henry Suett, and he was a flower- 
dealer. He was charged in police court, at Guild- 
hall, with driving a pony in barrow up hill on Fleet 
Street, which pony had sore knees and a sore back. 
He had a big whip knotted in two places. There 
were five large men on the barrow, and it was only 
with great difficulty that Suett could get his pony 
up the hill to Peel's Hotel, where the men all got 
down, and went in after some beer. He was given 
twenty-one days imprisonment with hard labor. 

The American traveller in England notices, with 
pride and satisfaction, the noble philanthropical 
organizations of his mother-country. And among 
them all there can be none more deserving of ad- 
miration than this Royal Society that I met with 
in old York Cathedral. 



PIOUS DIETETICS. I I 5 

In many ways I had imbibed the idea that the 
old days were very saintly clays, and that the old- 
time priests and lay-brothers were fasting, hair- 
cloth, self-denying sort of men. 

But here are some solid, beef-eating facts, copied 
from the registers of Durham Cathedral, which 
have never been made very public, that are a curi- 
ous revelation of the character of the Churchmen 
of the old days. 

The register in question gives a statement of 
the consumption of provisions in this Cathedral 
of Durham during Whitsun week in 1747, together 
with the prices of the articles. 

Here are the facts and figures : — 

j. d. 

Six hundred salt herrings 3 o 

Four hundred white herrings 2 6 

Thirty salted salmon 7 6 

Twelve fresh salmon 5 6 

Fourteen lings, 55 ' keelings,' four turbot 23 1 

Two horse-loads of white fish and a " congr " ... 5 10 

' Playc,' ' sparlings,' and eels and fresh-water fish . . 2 9 

Nine carcases of oxen, salted, so bought 26 o 

One carcase and a quarter, fresh 6 1 1 f 

A quarter of an ox, fresh, bought in town 3 6 

Seven carcases and a half of a swine, in salt. ... 22 2 \ 

Six carcases, fresh 12 9 

Fourteen calves 28 4 

Three kids, and twenty-six sucking porkers .... 9 j\ 
Fourteen capons, fifty-nine chickens and five dozen 

pidgeons 10 3 

Five stones of hog's lard 4 2 

Four stones cheese, butter and milk 6 6 



Il6 PIOUS DIETETICS.. 

s. d. 

A pottle of vinegar and a pottle of honey o 6\ 

Fourteen pounds of figs and raisins, sixteen pounds 

almonds and eight pounds of rice 3 7 

Pepper, saffron, cinnamon, and other spices .... 2 6 

One thousand three hundred eggs 5 5 

Sum total £10 12 6 

Similar " consumptions " occurred during the 
week of the feast of St. Cuthbert, and other saints 
among the monks of Durham, for a long period of 
years. 

I hardly know which astonishes me most in this 
table, — the quantity of provisions eaten, their pe- 
culiar character, or the extreme lowness of the 
prices named. 

Of a piece with this Church 'revelation is a state- 
ment I saw in a Lancashire paper made by an old 
Malton antiquary, that Torgan beer was always 
the favorite drink of Martin Luther, and that he 
was in the habit of using vast quantities of it. 

* 

There are many curious names for trades and 
occupations in England. I often saw, in city and 
country, the name cow-keeper posted upon houses, 
barns, etc. The cow-keeper, with us, is a milkman 
who keeps cows. The man who lays bricks is, 
in England, often termed a brick-setter. A lum- 
ber dealer is called a timber merchant. 

While walking over a country road in Hert- 
fordshire, I saw upon a small building the sign 



LA TH-RENDERS. I I J 

"lath-render." This was a poser to me. A little 
conversation with the man within the shop opened 
my eyes. Laths in England were formerly made 
entirely of oak. They were rent or split out of 
the solid log. In fact, said an old English me- 
chanic to me, the time was, and not so very long 
ago, when custom demanded in England that all 
the wood that entered into the construction of a 
house should be English oak. The English lath- 
render of to-day splits out of soft wood, by a slow, 
hand-process, great quantities of the laths that are 
used in England. 

The wood of the lath-render whom I talked with 
was a clear and straight-grained pine that came, 
in quarter-sections of the log, from northern 
Europe. The lath-worker said to me that the 
sawed laths of America that had been brought to 
England were just good for nothing. All the build- 
ers of his acquaintance rejected them. Those he 
was making were certainly an excellent article, 
and the wood he was working was first-class. 
They were strong and supple laths. Being split 
with the grain, they could not be otherwise. 

In that humming city of coal and iron, New- 
castle-on-Tyne, is an old school called the Royal 
Jubilee School, which once had for its head-mas- 
ter a man whose fame as a rhymer has gone around 
the world. His name was C. F. Springman, and 



Il8 SPRINGMAN OF NEWCASTLE. 

he was one of the best teachers the school ever 
had. Yet millions who have read his rhymes 
have never heard even the name of their author. 

I doubt whether any dictionary of poetical quo- 
tations ever gave him a place in its index, yet his 
lines have buzzed in the heads of more persons 
than any lines that were ever written. 

This schoolmaster introduced into his school 
the idea of teaching history, geography, and other 
studies through the medium of rhyme. 

Springman of ancient Newcastle was quite suc- 
cessful in many of his rhyming excursions. But 
he won immortality when he one clay hit upon a 
bit of jingle that had for its object the stamping 
on the minds of his boys, in an indelible manner, 
the number of days in the different months of the 
year, undoubtedly grumbling to himself, as I have 
often grumbled, over the stupidity of somebody 
or other in the far past, who, in getting up this 
monthly arrangement, did not make them all of 
the same length. And here are the perennial 
lines, — lines that hum Tn the head of every inter- 
est calculator on the English-speaking globe every 
day : — 

" Thirty clays hath September, 
April, June and November; 
All the rest have thirty-one 
Except poor February alone." 

I might say much of Newcastle, upon whose 



HIRING SERVANTS. I 1 9 

tall chimneys, rising above the grimy town and 
strange mixture of ancient and modern objects 
upon the summit and declivities of the three emi- 
nences upon which the town is built, I looked out 
through the cloud of smoke which seems ever to 
rest above this heart of the black country. But 
time is precious, life is short, and only "thirty 
days hath September, April, June and November;" 
and so I must leave the ancient city, after having 
given this "literary allusion," .which I am sure, 
because I got it from an original source, that 
no one else on this side the water has put on 
record. 

I often saw advertisements in the north of Eng- 
land local papers of this description : — 

"Hiring for Single Servants" — A hiring for single ser- 
vants will be held in the Corn Market on Monday, the 7th of May 
next. 

(Signed) Thomas George Gibson, Mayor." 

Sometimes these advertisements would be " hir- 
ing for double servants;" that is, for men with 
their wives. These fairs are, in some localities, 
held every six months, but the general custom is 
to hold them once a year. At Carlisle, an ancient 
city full of historical interest, situated on the 
southern border of Scotland, I happened to arrive 
at the time of its great yearly hiring fair. 

The huge railway-station in that city, belonging 



120 CARLISLE LURING FAIR. 

to the London and Northwestern line, and situated 
in the heart of the place, was a scene of the most 
unwonted bustle and confusion on the morning of 
Whit-Monday, when I was whirled into it in the 
Scotch mail, for Carlisle's annual hiring fair is 
always held on that day, and was just then being 
opened with a rush. 

Contracts in the locality of which Carlisle is the 
busy centre, made between master and man-ser- 
vant or maid-servant, are made for a year, and 
begin and end on this Monday. And so on this 
Monday — a day when all the old labor-contracts 
are completed — employers, and those who seek 
employment, come together, and make new ar- 
rangements. A hiring fair is a labor-exchange 
open for a day. 

At this semi-annual fair the tariff for male and 
female single servants was made up as follows : 
Strong girls, about seven pounds for the six 
months ; women, about eight pounds ; for women- 
servants of an exceptional character, ten pounds. 
Men were in good demand at from ten to twelve 
pounds for the half-year, with exceptional pay- 
ments of fourteen pounds. 

I have here given the precise figures and classi- 
fications as reported in the local paper. Here we 
have a hundred dollars a year for some of the right 
stamp of female servants, and a hundred and forty 
dollars a year for some men-servants. I had a talk 



FLINT. 121 

with a Newcastle artisan whose sisters — who were, 
he said, very capable girls — were out at service; 
and his figures corresponded with those I have 
given. 

The stations of the railway, on the May morn- 
ing of which I am writing, were placarded with 
handbills setting forth the fact that Carlisle's 
great hiring fair was being held, and offering to 
carry the employers and the laborers at greatly 
reduced rates. When, on the next morning, I 
made a farther plunge into Scotland, flying through 
to Edinburgh, I saw the highways along the line 
of the railway full of one-horse "tip-carts," bear- 
ing the household goods of laborers' families ; 
while the men, women and children trudged along 
on foot by the side of the teams. These family 
flights evidenced a pretty general change of base, 
the result of the new contracts made at the hiring 
fairs. 

THE GUN-FLINTS OF OUR GRANDFATHERS. 

It seemed to me that I discovered where they 
all came from, when, one afternoon in May, I took 
a long walk in the county of Hertfordshire, from 
Barnet to St. Alban's Abbey, one of the most 
magnificent abbeys in all England. My road lay 
through a region of a chalky formation ; and in 
England that dull, black mineral quartz, which we 



122 FLINT. 

term flint, abounds wherever the chalky formation 
exists. And here on every hand I found flint in 
abundance. Piles of it lined the roadside. Walls 
and dwelling-houses and ancient churches were to 
be seen built of it. The bed of the road itself 
was partially made of it. 

Forty or fifty years ago, the old flint-lock guns 
gave place to the newly discovered percussion-cap 
guns ; and in 1830 matches came into general use, 
and flint and tinder boxes for raising a fire went 
out of use forever. Before that time the cutting 
out of flints for the shooting and firing purposes 
named was a great industry in the flinty regions 
of England. A good flint-worker would split out 
three hundred merchantable flints in a day. They 
were exported to all parts of the world, and the 
gun-dealers of America received all their flints 
from this source. 

I found that Birmingham was still making the 
old-fashioned flint-lock guns for shipment to Africa, 
and other points where the rude natives would not 
use any other sort of fire-arms. There are dealers 
in America who are able to fill a large order for 
gun-flints from stocks they have had on hand a 
long while, and who have occasional orders for 
flint-lock guns for the African trade. England at 
one time used large quantities of flint in making 
glass and porcelain, but other articles are now 
used in its place. 



ENGLISH RIVERS. 12$ 

An American gentleman said to me, when I was 
landing in England for the first time, that I should 
be very much disappointed in her rivers. He 
remarked further, in that contemptuous manner 
which Americans are apt to display when compar- 
ing English scenery with American, that I should 
find the most famous English rivers little better 
than ditches and sewers. After no little travel 
about the United Kingdom by the banks of the 
best-known rivers of the country, I came to the 
conclusion that my American critic was nearer 
the truth than I had anticipated. But there is a 
more disagreeable fact connected with most Eng- 
lish rivers than merely their disappointing char- 
acter to an American as features of English 
scenery. 

These polluted, muddy rivers, flowing through 
densely populated cities and towns, which often 
drain into them, and which always cast into them 
much filth and garbage from the homes and facto- 
ries along their banks, are, in many cases, the 
sources of the domestic water-supply of the coun- 
try through which they flow. I visited and exam- 
ined some of the river water-works which supplied 
drinking-water for many large cities and towns. 

Water which no one would consider potable, 
and which seemed to me little better than raw 
sewage, and too mean for a fish's home, was 



124 FILTRATION. 

drawn from the sluggish streams, and passed into 
the water-pitchers and teakettles of Englishmen 
through a series of filtering-beds made, on the 
most scientific principles, of layers of gravel, coke, 
shale, sand, charcoal and other substances, which 
made the water bright, sparkling and perfectly 
clear, but may not have deprived it of its danger- 
ous qualities. 

And now here we reach the gist of this English 
water question. And the point raised is one of 
deep interest, and has a close application in this 
country. And this is the great question. Can 
dirty, bad water be made really clean and health- 
ful ? The judges of the Maidstone (England) 
County court have lately had before them an im- 
portant lawsuit, in which this question was a 
vital issue. It was urged by the defendants, 
with great force, that the filtration we have de- 
scribed fails to deprive water that has once been 
polluted by sewage, and other dirty agencies, of 
any of its more dangerous properties. Very high 
scientific authority was adduced in support of this 
position. My own observation leads me to take 
this ground. Some of the most dangerous water 
that has ever been used for domestic purposes in 
America — water that has bred typhoid and other 
fevers — has presented to the eye the most attrac- 
tive appearance, and in taste revealed nothing 
objectionable. Yet it held within it deadly dis- 



DRINKING WATER. 1 25 

ease, and came from sources that had been terribly 
contaminated. Passing through veins of gravel 
and sand, it had been bleached, but had not been 
purified. 

Water is not much used as a beverage in Eng- 
land. It is about the last thing people there 
think of drinking "straight." 

So completely are the English out of the habit 
of using water as a beverage, that the traveller is 
not only not offered it when he is expecting it, 
but finds some difficulty in getting it if he asks 
for it. I shall not soon forget the astonishment 
with which a highly intelligent Englishman looked 
upon my little boy of ten, who, at the Cunard 
steamer's table, would have his glass of cold water. 
He said to me he could not see how I dared let 
the little fellow pour such stuff into his stomach 
along with his dinner. 

A memory of a long ramble among the gray 
old college buildings of venerable Oxford is among 
the pleasantest of my reminiscences of English 
travel ; yet, after all, what I remember most viv- 
idly of Oxford, and what was most novel and 
interesting to me there, relates to the outside life 
of her students, as I studied it, when I mingled 
amid the throngs of Oxford's young men, as they 
watched the great champion games of cricket that 
were going on between the famous Australian 



126 ALONG THE ISIS. 

eleven and their own selected team, crowded the 
banks of the Isis to see the eight-oared races of 
their crews, which were preparing for the great 
Oxford and Cambridge contest at Putney, or 
plunged out into the country about their great 
university town, on long walks, bicycle runs, and 
rides in the saddle. 

The rage for athletics runs high at Oxford. 
Years ago, when Mark Pattison went up to Ox- 
ford from his quiet Yorkshire home, he was struck 
by two features of its life. One was the unstu- 
dious habits of a large proportion of his fellow- 
students ; the other, the strange character of the 
Oxford dialect. 

To-day far more Oxford men are absorbed in 
boating than in reading for honors. And, as for 
dialect, her students have a most marked and 
peculiar " lingo," as noticeable and characteristic 
as is their gait and carriage. Pattison said their 
dialect was as offensive to him as " English is to a 
Yankee." To-day the travelling American will 
find Oxford talk (Oxford slang) in many points 
quite unintelligible to him. 

But in the matter of the Oxford craze for boat- 
ing, etc., let the following amusing incident speak 
for itself : — 

The Oxford eight were out on a training pull 
on the Isis, under the lead of a stroke oar who 
was a scholar of Brazenose. The stroke heard 



ENGLISH SHOES. 1 27 

one of his crew discussing for a moment with a 
fellow-oarsman some point about their studies, 
making some classical allusions. The indignant 
captain paused ; and, while from his uplifted, feath- 
ered oar the glittering water was for an instant 
allowed to drip into the stream, he thundered out 
to the astonished undergraduate, " No damned 
intellectuality here ! " 

This was the bark of a rough bull-dog, yet it 
well showed the tone prevailing in Oxford boating 
circles. And I doubt not this terse, sweeping 
command might stand emblazoned upon the rooms 
of many a college man in our New England Ox- 
ford, without seeming at all inappropriate to the 
atmosphere there prevailing. 

The fashion, that was brought over here from 
London with the " Waukenphast " style of shoe, 
of wearing very heavy walking shoes, I do not 
believe in. I looked into the " Waukenphast " 
shoe-store while in London, and noticed that this 
sort of shoe was now largely made there for the 
American trade, European walkers having adopted 
something lighter. 

But of all the leg-wearying foot-wear that I ever 
set my eyes upon, the English laborer's farm-shoe 
leads the procession. I thought of bringing a 
pair home to open a shoe museum with, but they 
were so large and heavy, I gave up the idea. An 



128 LABORERS' SHOES. 

Irish gardener said their weight was seven pounds, 
and I think he under-weighted them. They are 
made of cow-hide uppers and oak-tanned soles, 
shod with great iron heels, and a large array of 
big nails ; and as the unfortunate wearer of these 
high-lows comes tramping towards you over the 
stones in the streets of some rural hamlet, you 
may well imagine that one of England's " Suffolk 
Punches " (heavy shod cart-horses) is coming over 
the road. These shoes cost the laborer fourteen 
shillings (three dollars and a half), and afford him 
at least a year's constant wear. No American 
farmer would live and move in such clumsy shoes. 
It takes the dull, slow-moving, contented Eng- 
lish laborer, who has in him the dull blood of 
many generations of men just like him, to live a 
happy life in such cumbering foot-wear. They 
chain him to the soil where his masters wish him 
to be chained. He has never, perhaps, been 
twenty miles from home in all his life. Emigra- 
tion to lands beyond seas is made to seem some- 
thing frightful to a man born and bred to the 
wearing of such shoes as these. So he plods 
through life in them, more stolid in manners than 
the heavy cattle he drives. " Over Edom will I 
cast out my shoe " is a scriptural signification of 
proprietorship. These dull ploughmen cast their 
broad shoes over a good-sized patch of English 
soil ; but, alas ! in their case the shoe does not 
gain proprietorship in the soil which it covers. 



THE BROAD ARROW. 120, 

On the Continent I saw and heard the clatter of 
the sabot, or wooden shoe ; and in the north of 
England I saw children wearing shoes with tops 
of leather and bottoms of wood, and visited shops 
where such were made. They are a useful, eco- 
nomical shoe, but terribly noisy. At Haworth, 
all the little children of the working classes wore 
these shoes, when I saw them on the way to school 
week-days, but they said they never wore them 
on Sunday, but had fine leather shoes for that day. 

THE BROAD ARROW. 

The first time I noticed this singular mark of 
British proprietorship was when it walked past 
me on the backs of some English convicts under 
sentence to penal servitude. This last term means 
a good deal in England ; for the authorities there 
succeed in getting a vast amount of hard labor 
out of their prisoners, a large proportion of which 
is done on the great public works, such as the 
harbor improvements at Portsmouth and Plym- 
outh, and in the great stone quarries, where the 
tourist often gets glimpses of the branded men as 
they work under careful supervision. 

The next time I met the broad arrow was when, 
in walking from Liverpool to London, I found in 
the road, in the town of Daventry, a flat stone 
under my feet, upon which this sign was plainly 



130 TICKET-OF-LEAVE SYSTEM. 

marked, and, upon inquiry, I found that the 
branded stone solidly noted the fact that my feet 
were planted upon the heart of England, — that I 
stood in its very centre. And afterwards I found 
this broad arrow mark, the origin of which has 
never been discovered, stamped upon the Queen's 
property of every description, from castle, ships, 
and huge guns down to a piece of Liverpool bag- 
ging, and protected in its position by a statute 
which fastens a penalty of two hundred pounds 
upon any person who is detected in removing it. 

The mention of English prisoners abroad with 
this arrow upon them brings to mind that singular 
Australian idea that has been introduced into 
English prison discipline, — the plan of sending the 
criminal who has reduced his term of confinement 
by good behavior out into the world upon a ticket- 
of-leave, upon which he must report at stated 
times until his full term of sentence has expired. 
This ticket-of-leave system must not be confounded 
with another peculiar English method of treatment 
of criminals, known as the police supervision sen- 
tence. In England a criminal is often sentenced 
to seven years of penal servitude, and five years of 
police supervision ; and in all these five years of 
supervision he must report himself to the prison 
authorities monthly, or be liable to immediate 
arrest. 

* 



NOVEL INSTITUTIONS, 131 

I was continually seeing in the windows of shops 
and inns, in England, handbills announcing the 
existence and meetings of coal-clubs, watch-clubs, 
clothing-clubs, umbrella-clubs, etc. ; and my curi- 
osity was naturally excited to discover just what 
these novel institutions were. 

I soon obtained an easy explanation of the mys- 
tery, and here it is. These clubs are working- 
people's organizations. A company of artisans, or 
agricultural laborers, — or, in fact, any set of men 
who are in receipt of moderate incomes, band 
themselves together into a watch-club, for in- 
stance, the object of which is to supply each 
member with a watch of a class agreed upon. 
One of these watch-clubs, which existed in New- 
castle-upon-Tyne, had forty members. 

Each member paid into the club two shillings a 
week, and with these eighty shillings the treasurer 
of the club each week bought a silver watch ; and 
a very good silver watch can be bought in Eng- 
land for eighty shillings. 

The names of all the club were then written 
upon cards, thrown into a box or bag, shaken up, 
and one drawn out in lottery fashion, the name 
drawn entitling its owner to the watch. It will be 
at once seen that this fortunate proprietor of the 
early " turnip," who had acquired a watch in a 
week for two bobs (English for shillings), might, if 
he were loose in his morals, attend no more meet- 



132 WA TCH-CL UBS. 

ings of that club, pay no more shillings for watches 
which were not for him ; in fact, think it a good 
thing for him to " resign." The constitutions of 
the organizations anticipate this danger, and pro- 
vide that the drawers must put up bonds that they 
will remain and pay till the last man of the club is 
able to parade with an eighty-shilling silver watch 
in his pocket, and the mission of the ring is ended. 

I was told that in Lancashire there was hardly 
a retail dealer of any description in that county 
who was not ready to get up one of these clubs, 
and I should judge that the custom of fostering 
them was common with most of the retail shop- 
keepers in all parts of the kingdom. 

The artisans and agicultural workers of Eng- 
land are great users of the co-operative principle ; 
and, when they can add to it an element of chance 
to give a little excitement to the business, and 
also some social features that shall give them an 
opportunity to get together often over the inevita- 
ble beer, they are supremely happy. The draw- 
ings, the assessings, and the general management 
of these clubs lead to a social gathering once a 
week, at which no small amount of beer is apt to 
be drunk, and a good deal of hilarity indulged in. 

I believe these people beat the world in getting 
up supply-clubs, — little rings for supplying them- 
selves with almost every thing, from a ton of coal 
to an orderly funeral. Burial-clubs are quite com- 



GOOSE-CLUBS. 1 33 

mon ; and when I heard of instances where laborers 
had been thrust into earth uncoffined, and of other 
cases where they had been carried to the grave in 
a cheap coffin which went not beneath the sod 
with the body, but which was reserved to be used 
again for transportation purposes, I did not wonder 
over the application of the benefit-club principle to 
burials. 

But one of the oddest clubs I heard of was 
termed a " goose-club." The typical English la- 
borer thinks every thing of his Christmas goose. 
The turkey will not do. He deems this bird dry 
and unsavory compared with the " royal goose." 
And in some country localities the people find the 
goose-club a capital organization. A speculative 
old lady is apt to be at the head of it. About three 
months before Christmas she begins collecting her 
sixpence of each member, so that each one shall 
be sure of the fat goose when Yuletide arrives. 

* 
English newspapers are quite in the habit of 

giving the occupation of the man whose death 

they print. This is particularly the case in the 

north of England, and from a North-of-England 

paper I take this record as an illustration : " At 

Shilbottle, 23d June, aged 93, George Hunter, 

mole-catcher, much respected." 

The expressions " much respected," " deservedly 

respected," and "dearly beloved" appear often in 

English death notices. 



I 34 MOLE-CA TCHERS. 

But in the record of death which I have quoted, 
I doubt not my readers have been struck, as I was, 
by the novelty of the occupation followed by the 
nonagenarian, "A mole-catcher, deeply respected." 
I had not to go far to find an explanation of the 
methods and machinery of such a queer English 
trade as this. I found a man near me who could 
intelligently answer all my questions about this 
mole business. 

Mole-catching has long been a distinct trade in 
Britain. There are, curiously enough, no moles in 
Ireland, but England, Scotland, and Wales are 
mole-burrowed to an enormous extent. The old 
English name of the animal is moitlduvarp, and I 
found this term still in use in the north of Eng- 
land, and also another mole name which sounded 
like"wunt." The animal is deemed a great nui- 
sance, for he bores and burrows and throws up his 
mole-hills in wheat-fields and pastures, doing a 
deal of damage. He lives upon grubs and insects ; 
yet, though he cares nothing for grains and vege- 
tables as food, he cuts their roots and ruins their 
growth as he bores his paths under the soil. 

The mole-catcher works with traps, clearing 
fields of the enemy by contract at so much an 
acre, or at so much a dozen for the moles destroyed. 
Some of these mole-catchers are sharp fellows, 
said my laboring friend who was telling me what I 
am now writing. They will save the moles they 



A FODDER OF LEAD AND A SEAM OF GLASS. I 3 5 

have taken from a field cleared at so much an acre, 
and sell them at so much a dozen to the man they 
are working for on the dozen plan, pretending they 
have been taken from his land. But this old mole- 
catcher, dead at ninety, was not one of that sort. 
He died respected. The moles, whose old enemy 
he was, got him at last, however ; and he was laid 
to rest under the sod where moles could burrow 
and bore about him, fearless now of his traps and 
snares. 

Of all the antiquated and blind weight and 
measure terms existing, the English list of these 
is the champion. I have often endeavored in vain 
to find out what things cost as I have wandered 
through the meat-stalls of English markets, be- 
cause I had not in my head or pocket the key to 
their cockney way of cutting up things. 

But here is a curious table showing those Eng- 
lish weights and measures which are so common 
in England, yet so unfamiliar in America : — 

A fodder of lead is ... 19! cwt, or 2,184 lbs. 

A firkin of butter 56 lbs. 

A stone of butcher's meat (London) .... 8 lbs. 

A stone of horseman's weight 14 lbs. 

A stone of iron shot 14 lbs. 

A stone of glass 5 lbs. 

A seam of glass .... 24st of 5 lbs., or 120 lbs. 

A fagot of steel 120 lbs. 

Pig ballast 56 lbs. 

Cask of bristles 10 cwt. 



136 A DICKER OF HIDES AND A STOAE OF FISH. 

A bale of feathers, about 1 cwt. 

A pocket of hops \\ to 2 cwt. 

A bag of hops, nearly z\ cwt. 

Hhd. of tobacco 12 to 18 cwt. 

A sack of potatoes 16S lbs. 

A sack of coals 224 lbs. 

A sack of flour 280 lbs. 

A dicker of hides 10 skins 

A dicker of gloves 10 doz. 

A last of hides 20 dckrs. 

A last of feathers 17 cwt. 

A last of gunpowder 24 bbls. 

A roll of vellum 5 doz., or 60 skins 

Barrel of butter 224 lbs. 

Stone of fish 8 lbs. 

Gallon of flour 7 lbs. 

Ton of potatoes 40 bush. 

Load of hay or straw 37 truss 

Truss of straw 86 lbs. 

Truss of old hay 56 lbs. 

Truss of new hay 60 lbs. 

# * 

I could find but very few wooden houses in 
England. Brick and stone are the well-nigh uni- 
versal building materials. I found clay very abun- 
dant in England, and brick-yards abounded. 

Red bricks are just now very fashionable, and 
their popularity is steadily increasing. The nobility 
and gentry, who are, in many cases, giving more 
attention than ever before to the improvement in 
tastefulness and in comfort of the dwelling-houses 
upon their estates, are quite generally erecting for 
the use of their farmers and other tenants upon 



BRICKS IN ARCHITECTURE. 1 37 

their estates, red-brick houses of the Queen Anne 
and Elizabethan styles of architecture. The great 
land-owners employ the best London architects. 
Rural England owes much of its attractiveness to 
the pains taken, and the advanced ideas held, in 
the matter of home-building by her nobility and 
gentry. 

I was much pleased by the effect produced in 
house architecture by use of bricks of various col- 
ors. Brick clays contain more or less iron. The 
hue of a burned brick depends upon the amount 
of iron in the clay. Clays containing less than one 
per cent of iron change in the kiln to cream-color 
and buff. Brick houses of these hues I found 
abundant. I thought them very attractive on ac- 
count of their shade. Clay with more iron in it 
comes from the kiln red. Blue bricks, which I 
also noticed, are made out of the same clay as are 
the red. 

A peculiar method of supplying air, as they are 
being burned, and the application of hotter fires 
to them, turns them out blue. Very fine brick, 
and terra cotta fancifully enamelled, are used with 
great effect in English architecture. By their use 
a great variety of colors is secured. 

Brick houses coated with cement, mastic, or 
something of the sort, and by their outside finish 
made to resemble houses of stone, are numerous 
in England. But this is an old style. The pres- 



138 " SMUDGERS." 

ent day, which cultivates the " sincere" in archi- 
tecture, does not favor this sham in building. 

I visited several clay-pits where the clay was of 
a color to turn out bricks of a yellowish hue, and 
bricks of this color are just now very popular with 
English builders. I also observe that many of the 
English bricks were made with a space scooped 
out on their broad side so that they might catch 
on a good supply of mortar, when laid, or set, as 
they say in England. The brick-setter's trade is 
an active one in England ; and, since houses are so 
universally made of stone and brick in England, 
the outside house-painter has a poor show there. 
And the inside one likewise ; for unpainted, nat- 
ural wood interiors are very much in vogue in 
England. 

There is a local name in England for artisans 
who do outside work at coloring. They are termed 
"smudgers." An Englishman said to me, that 
when he first saw in America painters at work on 
the outside of our wooden houses with the large 
brushes, he thought they were all whitewashing, 
since painting the outside of the houses was a 
thing hardly known in his county in England. 

I found fireplaces in almost every room in Eng- 
land, but saw no stoves in rural England. And 
rural Englishmen, when they come over here, often 
complain that our ever-present stove is about the 
hardest thing they have to endure. English peo- 



STONE IN BUILDING. 1 39 

pie do not demand such warm living-rooms as we 
do. I soon found that out as I travelled in Eng- 
land. I should say that sixty degrees would suit 
them far better than our customary seventy. 

But notwithstanding the fine ventilation af- 
forded their living-rooms by the ever-present fire- 
place, they have a habit of paying more attention 
to the ventilation of their houses from the outside 
than we do. This is the case with houses of high 
and low degree. Perforated bricks, iron gratings, 
etc., permit the outside air to circulate freely with- 
in the outer walls, and under the floors of laborers' 
cottages, farmers' houses, and baronial halls. 

Intelligent Englishmen were surprised when I 
told them how little attention the majority of our 
builders paid to ventilation. Philanthropists and 
men of science, working individually and in organ- 
izations, are doing more in England than in any 
other country on the face of the earth to improve 
the conditions and surroundings of the common 
people. 

Solid roofing for houses is that which I saw in 
parts of England and Wales. Stones from the 
mountains are split into slabs of about four inches 
in thickness, and two and three feet square, and 
used to cover the roofs in place of boards and 
shingles. The sides of the houses are, in these 
instances, made of stones, and some of these 
houses which I visited among the stony peaks of 



1 



I40 THE ART OF THATCHING. 

Derbyshire, not far from Chatsworth, had walls 
eighteen inches thick. These places were little 
farm-houses. All their out-buildings, from the 
barn to the well-house and hen-house, were made 
of solid stone. And in the farm-yards were water- 
ing-troughs, and troughs for the swine, made of the 
same material. On such home establishments as 
these time could make little impression. 

To thatch properly is quite an art, — an art usu- 
ally followed by those who have learned the trade 
of thatching, just as any other mechanical trade 
is learned. In the farming districts of England, 
barns for the storage of hay and straw are not 
commonly seen. But on every hand I saw huge 
ricks and stacks of hay which were covered with 
thatch. I was interested in noting how finely the 
hay was preserved that had thus been kept out- 
of-doors. In many towns I saw hay-stacks that 
had remained out-of-doors for three and four years. 
Turnips and other vegetables are in England 
piled in heaps in the fields, and covered with a 
coating of earth and straw. I saw many of these 
thatched heaps, most of which were turnip-heaps, 
which were opened, as the spring came on, for the 
purpose of feeding out the turnips to the sheep. 
The universal method was to cut up these turnips 
by running them through a hand-power cutting- 
machine. 



THATCHED ROOFS. 141 

Rye straw is one of the best and most popular 
sorts of straw that is used for thatching in Great 
Britain, but all kinds of straw, as well as rushes 
and reeds, are used. Wheat and oat straw are 
very good for the purpose. In Ireland I saw 
many laborers' huts that were "thatched" with 
turf. The turf was generally a sort of heather- 
growing turf, and, after being well laid on, the 
heather would grow, forming a fine, mat-like cover- 
ing to the roof. It is not an uncommon sight to 
see the goats browsing on such roofs, for the 
huts are so low studded they have little difficulty 
in mounting to the ridge-pole from the lowest 
corner of the cabin. In some parts of Ireland 
there are humble cabins of clay and mud, whose 
roofs are covered, at least in part, with a thatch 
made of dried potato-tops. 

While wandering in English hamlets, where the 
straw-thatched cottages were numerous, I often 
asked why the people living in houses thus cov- 
ered were not very much in danger from the roofs 
catching fire, these roofs being apparently of such 
combustible material. But I could not find that 
there had been any serious objections entertained 
against thatched roofs on this ground, though 
cases of fire in the straw coverings had occasionally 
been known. But other objections against these 
straw-thatched roofs were spoken of, and noticed 
by me as I travelled in the regions where they 



142 PUBLIC LIBRARIES. 

are common. The birds are fond of building their 
nests in them, which serves to disarrange them ; 
and they are also quite in the habit of pulling the 
straw out of them, and carrying it away to use in 
building their nests in other places. 

Thatched roofs belong to the olden times in 
Great Britain. The red-tiled roof, which is also a 
very old-fashioned roof, holds its own there better 
than the straw roof, and I saw many new roofs of 
these tiles. 

* 

Public libraries abound everywhere in England, 
and it seemed to me that all classes of people 
there had better opportunities than we have to 
supply themselves with reading-matter. It was 
not uncommon for me to find books from several 
different free libraries in the hands of one work- 
man's family. And excellent newspapers are so 
abundant and cheap that few households are with- 
out, at the very least, one regular newspaper. The 
average reader in an English manufacturing town 
inclines, as with us, to turn to fiction for entertain- 
ment ; and there, as here, is a complaint against 
the public libraries on account of the temptations 
they offer to the omnivorous story reader. 

In a humming coal and iron town in the heart 
of the black country, I found that out of a total 
of about five thousand books issued by its public 
library in a week, over three thousand were works 



GROWTH OF LONDON. 1 43 

of fiction ; while of history, biography, works of 
travels, and geography only about four hundred 
and fifty are called for. Surely the novel reader 
abounds abroad, as well as in the United States. 

* 
I doubt not some of my readers will be greatly 

astonished when I tell them that London has, 
within its fifteen miles' radius, the enormous popu- 
lation of five millions, and is steadily increasing 
its numbers with a rapidity rarely excelled in city 
growth the world over. I travelled every quarter 
of this vast, teeming metropolis, and can bear per- 
sonal witness to the fact that on every hand build- 
ings were springing up and new streets being 
built. Seventy miles of new streets are yearly 
added to the vast network of London's avenues. 

I was, I must confess, overwhelmed by the 
immensity of London. But I was not so much 
impressed by what may be termed its material 
greatness — that is, by the number and size of its 
buildings, the maze of its streets, and the length 
of its broad avenues of homes and trade — as by 
the tide of humanity that ebbed and flowed about 
me wherever I wandered in the mighty metropolis. 

Statistics and descriptions give one no idea of 
the way the great London hive is packed, and all 
that I had read relative to the number and density 
of its population had in no wise prepared me for 
what I saw and felt as I sauntered hither and 



144 GROWTH OF LONDON. 

thither, day after day, in the busiest and most 
populous portions of the city. 

And still the city keeps on growing with a ra- 
pidity that really alarms London thinkers, who are 
to-day discussing the question, what means shall 
be undertaken to check the growth of the already 
unwieldly monster. Suggestions have been made 
that special efforts be undertaken to promote di- 
rect emgration from London to the colonies. But 
this would do little good, for the aided emigration 
would be more than out-counted by the immigra- 
tion from the country to London. General emi- 
gration schemes are the only ones which would 
tend to relieve London. The real vitality of Lon- 
don is only maintained by the country immigra- 
tion, for the country is to-day to be credited with 
furnishing the metropolis the best of its citizens. 

The serious problem which I am discussing is 
in amusing contrast with an imaginary one of the 
same kind which came up in London in the six- 
teenth century. In 1580 London placed a restric- 
tion on its extension, forbidding the erection of 
new buildings, on the ground that such expansion 
would be likely to increase the plague, create 
trouble in governing such multitudes, make a 
dearth of victuals, multiply beggars, bring to- 
gether more artisans than could live, and impover- 
ish other cities for lack of inhabitants. 

Along with this growth goes a struggle, on the 



OPEN SPACES. I45 

part of London's wisest people, to preserve all the 
open spaces existing, and to yearly add as many 
more of these as possible. These commons of 
the city are used to an enormous extent by the 
laboring classes. To see vast crowds there, in the 
full enjoyment of the green fields and forest shades, 
one should ramble through them, as I did, on a 
bank holiday. 

It has been proved that the immense number 
of fires steadily burning in London, for household 
purposes, etc., have the effect to raise the tempera- 
ture of the atmosphere of the city above that of the 
surrounding country. And in summer, when this 
effect, added to the clouds of smoke and dust 
hanging in and over the city, makes the city air 
particularly oppressive, the Londoner seeks the 
magnificent open spaces that lie without the walls 
— the Epping Forest, Couldon Common, or Burn- 
ham Beeches — with a feeling of great relief. The 
utmost freedom is allowed the visitors to the parks. 
In Hyde Park young and old walk on the grass 
everywhere as they please, and " keep off the 
grass," is a sign unknown in any London park. 

No dogs are allowed in these open spaces unless 
led by their keepers. During the last nine years 
the corporation of London has acquired, as open 
spaces, between 6,000 and 7,000 acres at a cost of 
,£312,950; namely, West Ham Park (76 acres), 
costing ,£15,000; Epping Forest (5,348 acres), 



I46 MILLIONS ON THE MOVE. 

,£275,300; Wanstead Park (783 acres), £7,625; 
and Couldon Common (347 acres), £7,000. All 
that has been obtained from the duty on the im- 
portation and measurement of foreign grain. 

Opponents to the acquirement of these open 
spaces have sometimes said that the bread of the 
people was taken from them to purchase the fields, 
but this seems jargon when one reflects upon the 
fact that the grain-tax in question is only one 
seventy-fifth part of a farthing on every quartern 
loaf. 

It was told me that, without doubt, not less 
than a million people move into and out of the 
business portions of London every day. I have 
never anywhere seen such crowds on the wing as 
I have observed on the lines of suburban rail and 
other means of public conveyance at the close of 
the day, and in the early morning hours. 

But on holidays the rush and jam of the human 
tide that sets outward from London is something 
indescribable. Fares are extremely low on these 
holidays, both on the railways and steamers. For 
five shillings passengers are taken from London 
to Brighton and back (ninety miles) ; for thirty 
shillings, from London to Paris and back, if the 
the tourist is willing to travel by the night service. 
And in every possible direction London holiday 
trips, by rail and steamer, are advertised at corre- 
spondingly low rates. 



EAST END OF LONDON. 1 47 

I have wandered long and far in the most pov- 
erty-stricken districts of London. These are sit- 
uated at the east end of the city. Of this slum of 
London, Huxley, president of the Royal Society, 
who had at one period been a practising physician 
in this east end, has spoken as follows : " I have 
several times travelled around the globe, visiting, 
as I journeyed, the most savage and degraded peo- 
ples in barbarous lands ; but I have never any- 
where seen such degradation and misery as I have 
seen in the east end of my own city." 

An English archbishop, speaking of this same 
district before a large London audience, made a 
profound sensation by exclaiming, " The east end 
is hell without the fire ! " 

But pleasanter is it for me to show the sunnier 
side of the city. Thronged, grimy London is full 
of the sweetest and noblest charities, and careful 
study and observation in London convinced me 
that it was one of the most generous cities in the 
world. Here are found organizations of an infi- 
nite variety for the relief of want, suffering and 
sickness. And, outside of these organizations, 
individual charity laborers are more numerous 
than in any other city in the world. It is nobly 
fashionable for the nobility and gentry of London 
to give often. And the poor give their pennies to 
those poorer, while I have often seen the poorer 
flinging their farthings to those even more desti- 
tute than themselves. 



I48 LONDON HOSPITALS. 

In illustration of London's generosity to its 
established charities, let me describe the methods 
and machinery of two of its great charity sys- 
tems. The city has what it terms its Hospital 
Saturday and its Hospital Sunday. On Hospi- 
tal Saturday, the first Saturday in September, a 
large collection is taken up on behalf of the hospi- 
tals of the city, at which time the fifteen thousand 
different establishments connected with the indus- 
trial interests of the city are visited, and all em- 
ployed therein are solicited to contribute. About 
twelve hundred stations are also set up in the 
streets, and attended by ladies belonging to the 
first circles in London, where hospital collections 
are also made from the throngs that surge through 
the streets of the teeming city. The post-offices, 
all the railway-stations, and other public places, 
are also included in the swing of this Saturday 
hospital collection-box. It seemed to me that the 
Saturday hat was passed around in this open man- 
ner to reach the pockets of those who would not 
be present in church when it was sent around on 
Sunday. 

Over thirty-six thousand subscription sheets, 
and an immense number of collection-boxes, are in 
use on this Hospital Saturday ; and when the lists 
are closed, all the money taken in is brought to 
the central office in Fleet Street, and counted by 
a volunteer corps of London bank clerks. Hos- 



LONDON HOSPITALS. 1 49 

pital Sunday is the Sunday on which collections 
are taken up in all the churches on behalf of the 
hospitals of London. And these hospitals are 
vast in number, and of an almost endless variety. 
Almost every disease is represented by a large 
hospital for its treatment, among which are several 
for the care of incurables suffering from cancer, 
consumption and other diseases. 

I shall not not soon forget the deep impression 
made upon my mind, as, in the heart of London, 
I read upon the outer wall of an immense pile of 
buildings the inscription, " Hospital for strangers 
who are sick. No recommendation necessary. 
Strangers in London who are in sickness and 
poverty will be admitted here to the full extent of 
the accommodations." 

Many of those noble hospitals, and other chari- 
table institutions of London, are in possession of 
vast funds, accumulations of individual gifts and 
public grants, that have been bestowed upon them 
during the past. Many others have very small 
endowments, and are, therefore, mainly dependent 
upon current voluntary donations. These they 
call for in a way not common with us, which is by 
advertisement appeals in the leading London 
papers. Here may be found column after column 
of the cries for help. At the holiday seasons 
these solicitations for gifts crop out more strongly 
than ever. 



I 50 CHARITY BALLS. 

In England, more than with us, resort is had to 
balls and parties, and entertainments of various 
kinds, for money to carry on the public charities, 
which in Paris are supported, in some instances, 
by a direct tax upon the theatres. And these 
London entertainments in aid of the great chari- 
ties are often very fashionable affairs, and under 
the patronage of the nobility and gentry. Says 
one young swell to another young swell, "Are 
you going to the Throat and Ear ball ? " 

"No," replies swell number two; "I am en- 
gaged to the Hospital for Incurable Idiots." 

" But I may meet you at the Epileptic dance ? " 

" Oh, yes ! We are sure to be there, the Epi- 
leptic stewards will be so delightful." 

So the society young men go the rounds of 
these gay parties in aid of these noble charities. 
I noted that there has of late been a falling off in 
the current voluntary subscriptions to the great 
London charities, and "The London Times" has 
been urging the necessity of a direct government 
support for them. 

* 
If London has a wicked aspect, it has also its 

attractive side, and I know of nothing more en- 
couraging and inspiring than a glance at its many 
admirable organizations, which have for their ob- 
ject the care and elevation of the young of both 
sexes who are thrown upon the city by the country 



A MODEL ORGANIZATION. I 5 I 

from which they come in search of occupation and 
! fortune. 

(1 In illustration of this may be mentioned one of 
; London's organizations for helping young men, 
which is, without doubt, the most successful society 
I of its class to be found in any city in the world, 
! and also one of the largest young men's associa- 
tions to be found anywhere. I refer to the Lon- 
don Polytechnic Young Men's Christian Institute 
of Regent Street. The term Christian, as applied 
to this association, is used in its noblest and widest 
sense ; for in admitting young men to membership, 
what is popularly known as a "religious test" is 
not applied, and the society is entirely unsectarian. 
This is in happy contrast with some so-called 
Christian organizations for young men I have 
known elsewhere, which, announcing that a good 
moral character is the only qualification for mem- 
bership, will not really admit to full membership 
any young man who has not joined some " evan- 
gelical " church, no matter how excellent a young 
man he may otherwise be. The London Polytech- 
nic has already some twenty-two hundred mem- 
bers, all young men of the working-class, and at 
least five hundred more have booked themselves 
to join as soon as there is room for them. The 
institute has its reading-rooms, library, its classes 
for instruction in a wide range of things, from 
single-stick to short-hand, its tennis club and 



152 POLYTECHNIC CHRISTIAN INSTITUTE. 

bicycle club, bands of music, savings bank, insui i 
ance company, ambulance corps, bathing estab 
lishment and debating society, and I hardly kno\ 
what else. Its rooms open at 5.30 a.m., and close 
at 10.30 p.m. It does not admit the use of cards! 
and dice, and it also makes an announcement, that 
sounded curiously enough to me, that it had no ' 
drinking-bar. The Polytechnic was founded by aj i 
most liberal London gentleman by the name of* 
Quentin Hogg, and to it he has devoted a large 
portion of his time and fortune. I had an oppor- I 
tunity of attending the anniversary meeting of the 
London Young Men's Christian Association in 
Exeter Hall, Lord Shaftesbury in the chair, as 
usual, and learned something of the methods and 
machinery of this excellent organization ; but I 
am convinced that the Polytechnic is better calcu- 
lated to reach the poor young men from the coun- 
try. In a most touching article printed not lon^ 
ago in a leading London journal entitled, "A Bitter 
Cry from Outcast London," and which painted in 
sad colors the poverty and loneliness of the thou- 
sands of working young men and women who 
annually pour into the city from the country, it 
was proved from English blue-books that whereas, 
in 1 86 1, for every hundred people who resided in 
rural districts, there were one hundred and sixty- 
five living in towns, that in 1881, one hundred 
and ninety-nine were living in towns against one 



FIRES. 153 

[ hundred in country ; so that it is claimed that it 
is accurate to say to-day that there are in England 

' two people living in urban for every one residing 
in rural districts. 

Fires in England, in country and city, are grow- 
ing more and more common, and the means of 
L checking or extinguishing them do not appear to 
be keeping pace with the increase in liabilities 
to conflagration. It is a singular fact, and one 
which I found Englishmen ready to concede, that 
a people famous for their manufacture of fine 
machinery, and for the perfect discipline of their 
soldiers, have not turned out such fine steam fire- 
engines as we have, nor handled them so skilfully 
and rapidly at fires. 

The London fire department, as at present 
organized and managed, is one of the most inter- 
esting and effective institutions of the city. And 
it is a hard-worked department, for fires are very 
frequent in the great metropolis, and the character 
and location of many of its buildings such that 
the conflagrations are often most difficult to cope 
with. For proof of this, follow along for a month 
or two the fire column in "The London Times." 

At the great fire in London, in the time of 
Charles II., more than thirteen thousand wooden 
houses were burned down. London is to-day a 
city of brick and stone buildings, yet they are, in 



154 LONDON FIRE DEPARTMENT. 

many instances, of such vast height, and so closely 
packed in narrow streets, that they are more diffi- 
cult to manage, viewed from the fireman's stand- 
point, than were the low-roofed tinder-boxes of 
the seventeenth century. And think of the vast 
ocean of houses in the London of to-day ! 

Every year now sees at least twenty-five thou- 
sand new buildings put up in London, and some 
of these brand-new edifices, which I saw spring- 
ing up on every hand, are each big enough to 
tenement a village. Very familiar landmarks in 
London are its forty or more fire-towers, — the 
watch-towers rising at least one hundred and 
twenty feet from the level of the street, and form- 
ing a feature of the stations of the fire-department. 

When information of a fire reaches the engine- 
house, it is the custom of a fireman to ascend the 
tower and look out over the city for the purpose 
of locating precisely the conflagration point, and 
then through a speaking-pipe shouting down his 
report to the starting engine-company. Travellers 
have generally had the idea that men were con- 
stantly kept on watch in these towers, but I found 
such was not the case. 

One feature in the management of many of the 
large fire and life insurance companies of London 
attracted my particular attention, and, as ex- 
plained by English friends, both astonished and 
amused me. 



DUMMY DIRECTORS. I 5 5 

Large numbers of these companies parade, with 
a good deal of apparent satisfaction, in their ad- 
vertisements and in their prospectuses, the names 
of chairmen and directors who bear high-sounding 
titles. Earls, viscounts and dukes figure in these 
capacities. In some cases I doubt not the nobility- 
have ability, time and taste for the discharge of 
such fiduciary duties. But Englishmen told me 
that, in a majority of instances where the names 
were paraded as I have here described, the titled 
directors were not conspicuous for their business 
talents. It was often said to me that such names 
might be viewed as baits with which to catch the 
custom of an English public, which has, as every 
one knows, a greedy appetite for titles. These 
baronial managers are supposed to have great 
attractions in the eyes of a majority of the out- 
side investing public ; though the few who are 
thoroughly posted know well enough that these 
great names are often used but as baits for the 
unwary, and give the widest berth to the shares 
of the companies, laying the greatest stress upon 
the fact of having earls and marquises on their 
boards of direction. 

Without doubt these noble lords go through the 
motions expected of them, and serve, in a dummy 
capacity, in a prompt and proper manner ; for it 
is a curious fact that a guinea a time for prompt 
attendance at board meetings constitutes no tri- 
fling attraction to many of these noble directors. 



156 TITLED DIRECTORS. 

A thorough business man of London said to 
me that many an impecunious lord could not live 
in London during the " season," were it not for 
the guinea-fees he received for attendance at the 
various corporation boards of which he was an 
ornamental member. 

There is no country in the world that has a 
larger class of cultivated and well-born gentlemen 
who have nothing in particular which they are 
really obliged to do, though many of this class are 
voluntary workers of the busiest and most praise- 
worthy character. Some of these noble gentle- 
men are in an impecunious condition, and are, 
therefore, more than willing to receive directors' 
attendance guinea-fees for services on railway, 
bank and other corporation boards to which they 
bring neither the ability nor inclination to do any 
service of value. When a railway bill was under 
discussion in the House of Lords, where it hap- 
pened to meet an undeserved defeat, it leaked out 
in the press that the bill was killed by lordly rail- 
way directors, a list of the same being at the time 
printed, showing that some of the members of 
the House of Lords were on as many as five rail- 
way boards of directors. The great lords of Eng- 
land are its great land owners ; and the railways 
have cut their way through and under their splen- 
did parks and farms, preserves and plantations. 
And these large landed proprietors, who have gen- 



TITLED DIRECTORS. I 57 

erally been directors in the lines which have been 
put through their estates, have dictated, somewhat 
at the expense of the public welfare, locations and 
land damages. But the blight of the dummy di- 
rector has often proved worse than the action of 
the sharp board member. Especially has this 
proved true in English boards of bank direction, 
where the rota and the agenda have borne the 
names of titled nobodies, who have attempted to 
perform supervising work about which they know 
very little. And this incompetent supervision has 
given swindling managers and subordinates un- 
limited chances for those stupendous bank defal- 
cations which have been startling all England. 

Some idea of the profitableness of the profes- 
sion of a director of public companies may be 
gathered from the admission of Sir Henry Tyler, 
at the meeting of the Anglo-American Brush 
Electric Light Corporation (Limited). The direc- 
tors' fees in 1882 amounted to ,£25,896. Sir 
Henry Tyler's share as chairman would probably 
be as much as ,£4,000 ; and, as he is on at least 
fifteen boards, his income as a professional direc- 
tor would be as much as ,£60,000 a year, on the 
supposition that he charges each company the 
same terms. 

I did not cross the Atlantic for the sole purpose 
of visiting the greatest bank in the world, — the 



158 THE BANK OF ENGLAND. 

Bank of England ; but, having for the most of my 
life been up to my eyes in banking business, I 
fully resolved, when I started Londonward, that 
one of the first places I would visit on reaching 
the English capital should be that great banking 
institution of which I had heard and read so much, 
and whose methods I had so often studied from 
afar. Through the kind offices of Hon. Russell 
Sturgis, a former resident of Boston, I obtained a 
card of admission to the bank ; and, on one of the 
special days appointed for visiting the institution, 
I passed within its gates, and handed my card to 
the first employe of the bank whom I encountered. 
This person was an old porter, dressed in a green 
swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons, buff waist- 
coat and dark trousers, — the official uniform of 
his corps, and of ancient date. I was by him at 
once conducted to the room and desk of the chief 
accountant. 

The Bank of England, which is situated in the 
very heart of London, and which occupies three 
acres of ground, somewhat resembles, in the num- 
ber and extent of its departments, the United 
States Treasury. The different rooms of varying 
size and style are connected by long public pas- 
sage-ways, which, in their many windings, assume 
a labyrinthine character quite confusing to one 
who seeks to explore the bank without a guide. 
It was by a winding route through these many 



THE BANK OF ENGLAND. I 59 

halls and passages that my guide now led me to 
the chief accountant. This officer holds a posi- 
tion very similar to that of the cashier in any 
large American bank. I found him writing, with 
several subordinates within easy reach of him, in 
the small and plainly furnished room which he 
occupied. Interested in the fact that I was also 
a bank officer, he readily turned from his work to 
converse with me ; and, after selecting a deputy 
to pilot me about the institution, he urged me to 
return for further talk. 

I shall not attempt to give a detailed account of 
all I saw, but shall endeavor merely to present a 
few instantaneous views of the great institution as 
I that morning saw it, when all its complicated 
machinery was in motion. Readers who wish for 
minuter detail will find what they require in 
Francis's "History of the Bank of England," in 
two portly volumes, or " Gilbert on Banking." 

A banker by profession, it was but natural that 
I should look and listen with intense interest as I 
walked and talked in the central and regulating 
bank of the world. Merchants, bankers' clerks 
and messengers were thronging past me, making 
deposits and drawing checks, dealing over the 
counters with the receiving and paying cashiers, 
officials whom we in America term paying and 
receiving tellers. Members of the great corps of 
out-tellers — for so the Bank of England styles its 



! 60 L UNCH-ROOM. 

regular messengers — were passing in and out in 
the discharge of their running duties, such as pre- 
senting and collecting drafts, and making other 
outside settlements. In the Rotunda, a large 
circular room with a lofty dome, persons of all 
nations and many classes were clustered in 
groups, or moving about, making the place an 
exchange where shares and bonds were sold, and 
financial negotiations of a general character trans- 
acted. But I was soon brought face to face with 
novelties in banking which were of great interest 
to me, and merit careful description. And in 
these hasty bank notes of mine, I know of no bet- 
ter way than to begin at the bottom of the bank 
and work upwards. 

The Bank of England lunch-room is situated in 
the basement of the building, and is a spacious and 
solidly furnished room of an exceedingly neat and 
attractive appearance. All its arrangements were 
of the most substantial and comfortable character ; 
and its bill of fare, which I looked carefully into 
in search of suggestions for the lunch-rooms of 
our home banks, was of a thoroughly English 
type. It offered a limited list of solid, wholesome 
articles of diet, among which bacon, roast beef, 
puddings, bread and cheese were prominent. As 
for liquids, in addition to coffee, tea and cocoa, 
the Englishman's inevitable bitter beer was plenti- 
fully supplied, and almost universally patronized by 



ISSUE DEPARTMENT. l6l 

the bank officers, for London bank officials do not 
attempt to live without beer any more than do 
London mechanics. The Bank of England lunch- 
room is a feature of long standing, and the lunch- 
rooms of American banks are but copies of the 
English idea. 

The Bank of England has, in England proper, a 
monopoly of the business of circulating notes, and 
the' aggregate of its circulation in the hands of the 
public averages about twenty-five million pounds. 
The issue and redemption of this immense circula- 
tion are managed by the issue department of the 
Bank of England. 

The thin, strong, crisp paper upon which Bank 
of England notes are all printed is made by the 
bank's own mills in Kent. It is turned out in long, 
ingeniously water-marked strips which are of the 
width of two notes. This paper I saw and handled 
in the printing-room, where a wonderfully compli- 
cated press was turning out, at a stroke, completely 
finished Bank of England notes, of denominations 
ranging from five pounds, its smallest issue, to one 
thousand pounds, its largest. Special issues of 
Bank o/ England notes of an enormous value have 
at various times been made, but the regular de- 
nominations are as I have just mentioned. There 
is nothing hand-made about a note of the Bank of 
England, not even an autographic mark, number, 



1 62 ASSORTING AND REDEEMING ROOM. 

or signature. The nearest approach to these are 
the numbers, which are inserted by a marvellous 
piece of automatic machinery, and the signatures, 
which are printed fac-similes. An average of about 
sixty thousand notes are turned out each day. No 
note is ever reissued, and the average life of these 
notes is about a week. In a rapid inspection of 
the assorting and redeeming room, I saw how these 
notes were received, assorted by their denomina- 
tions, cancelled, and relegated to the storage-rooms 
for five years' careful preservation, and final de- 
struction by fire. It is, by the way, a curious fact 
that these relegated notes are burned in the dead 
of night, so that the noxious fumes from such vast 
masses of burning paper may disturb no one. In 
the assorting-room I saw, behind the bronze lattice- 
work which enclosed them and their morning 
receipts of redeemed notes, perhaps a hundred 
hard-working clerks, mainly young men, at their 
task of assorting these vast accumulations of paper 
money. The air was white with the flying notes 
as, with astonishing rapidity, the assorters scattered 
into their proper places in the drawers before them 
the redemptions they had in hand. 

The redeemed notes of the Bank of England are 
cancelled by punching out the words and figures 
indicating their denominations, and the tearing off 
their signatures. They are then packed in boxes 
about a foot square, and stored in a great vault 



BULLION. 163 

under the bank. An average stock on hand of 
these dead notes amounts to about fifteen thou- 
sand boxes, representing a former value of about 
two thousand million pounds, and a gross weight 
of nearly a hundred tons. I have been too long 
in contact, all my business days, with paper money, 
to be very much stunned by such figures as these, 
or to be carried away by the sights of the assorting- 
room where bright and new thousand-pound notes 
were rapidly being transformed into waste paper. 
I was here looking only at the productions of the 
Bank of England's paper-mills and printing-presses. 
The reserves upon which this paper money had 
been issued, the gold and silver coin and bullion 
of the institution, arc what the professional banker 
looks upon with real interest and respect. 

The Bank of England's stock of gold and silver 
generally amounts to about two million pounds, 
or, I might more properly say, this is a fair aver- 
age of its specie reserves. A large proportion of 
these reserves rests in its strong room in the shape 
of bullion. Its vaults carry a stock of bullion 
varying in value from two to three hundred mil- 
lions sterling. The gold coin of the bank is kept 
in what is termed the Treasury Department, that 
division of the institution which has the manage- 
ment of the public debt of the realm, and the 
administration of the coinage monopoly which it 
holds under the government. Here it is stored in 



164 BULLION. 

bags of one thousand pounds sterling each. Every 
bag weighs two hundred and fifty ounces. A mil- 
lion pounds sterling of gold will weigh not far from 
a ton. Bullion is gold in bars of about eight and 
one-half inches in length, three inches in width, 
and an inch in thickness. These bars are stacked 
on little wagons. 

I have given some figures as the average of the 
amount of gold coin and gold bullion held by the 
Bank of England, but it is difficult for any one to 
know just the state of the bank's reserves, except 
at the time of its weekly returns. From all lands 
gold is constantly flowing into the bank. To all 
lands gold is constantly being shipped from the 
bank. The ebb and flow of this golden tide are 
watched with sharp eyes by financiers of all coun- 
tries, for the Bank of England holds the reserves 
of all the banks of London, and the banks of Lon- 
don hold a good share of the reserves of many 
lands. The Bank of England's rate for money 
rises and falls with the rise and fall of its specie 
reserves, and operators in money and merchandise, 
from Manitoba to the Congo, are governed in their 
movements by the swing of its interest figures. 

It is only within a comparatively recent time 
that the Bank of England has made a practice of 
publishing weekly public returns of its condition. 
In former days its internal affairs were kept a pro- 
found secret, and even an order of Parliament was 



COIN- TES TER. 1 6 5 

powerless to extract from its managers any state- 
ment of the amount of gold and silver it was carry- 
ing. There are two very interesting machines in 
the specie departments of the Bank of England, — 
one in its bullion-room, the other in its coin-room. 
These are the wonderful instruments for weighing 
bullion and testing sovereigns. The weighing- 
machine of the bullion-room is kept in an air-tight 
glass case, where it rests, over six feet in height, 
upon a solid bed of concrete. So accurate is this 
heavy-beamed machine, with its capacity for weigh- 
ing three hundred and sixty ounces of bullion at a 
time, that the weight of a penny postage-stamp 
will easily record itself on the indexed dial. This 
bullion scale was invented by James Murdock 
Napier. 

The coin-tester of the treasury division of the 
bank, the invention of Mr. Cotton, a former gov- 
ernor of the bank, and which is one of the great- 
est curiosities of the institution, may well be 
likened to a mill. I saw the employes of the bank 
thrusting sovereigns into its hoppers at the rate 
of sixty thousand a business day. These testing- 
mills, of which there are at least a dozen in the 
bank, are run by a small air-engine. They may 
be characterized as marvellous automata, which 
have only to be supplied through their hoppers 
with the sovereigns and half-sovereigns whose 
weight is to be tested. When once the coins 



1 66 DIRECTORS' MEETINGS. 

have come within the embrace of the clock-work- 
like machinery of these testers, they are not 
allowed to pass out till all which are deficient in 
weight are separated from those of full and satis- 
factory solidity. These coin-testing machines are 
deemed by ingenious mechanics the most wonder- 
ful mechanical achievement of modern times. 

* 
The directors' room is a fine, high-studded hall, 

plainly but solidly furnished. A prominent feature 
of the room is an open fireplace, in which, on the 
cool day of the early spring in which I visited the 
bank, a cheerful coal-fire was burning. The cen- 
tre of the room was occupied by a long and wide 
table, about which were ranged, in stately order, 
twenty-six capacious mahogany chairs, which, on 
directors' meeting-days, are supposed to be filled 
by the governor, deputy-governor, and the twenty- 
four directors of the bank. 

At all times the meetings of the Bank of Eng- 
land are regarded with interest by the business 
and financial world ; and the doings of such meet- 
ings, when action of importance is taken, are 
telegraphed around the globe. But, in times of 
general disturbance in financial matters, or of ex- 
treme panic, the keenest interest centres in these 
meetings, and the monetary world waits with 
breathless anxiety for their results. 

Let us drop in upon one of these monetary 



A DIRECTORS' MEETING. 1 67 

meetings. The governor of the bank, Mr. J. S. 
Gilliat, takes the chair. Mr. Hammond Chubb, 
the secretary of the corporation, who takes a posi- 
tion on his right, reads the minutes of the last 
court, — that held in September. 

This is the March gathering. The governor 
reports upon the bank's work for the six months 
which have intervened. He has in hand an im- 
mense institution, and the figures he reels off are 
really gigantic. With a capital of a hundred mil- 
lions of dollars, deposits of nearly two hundred 
millions, and a circulation of nearly two hundred 
millions, the Bank of England can make up a very 
large slate. Recall one or two significant items 
from one of these semi-annual statements. This 
bank, which started in 1695, with fifty clerks work- 
ing in one room, and paid on an average eighty 
pounds a year each, now reports a thousand em- 
ployes, and a pay of a million and one-half dollars 
a year. 

The earnings figures presented at this meeting 
which we are attending may be considered a fair 
sample of these usually brought out at these Bank 
of England stockholders' meetings of modern 
days. 

Here they are : Net profits for the last six 
months, ,£710,857, making the amount of the 
"rest" on the day of the meeting ,£3,742,923. 
The chairman proposes a dividend of five per cent, 



1 68 A DIRECTORS' MEETING. 

free of income tax, to be paid on the 7th of April. 
Shareholder Botley, who has in advance been 
selected as seconder, and duly coached for his part 
in the play, now rises and seconds the motion for 
the five per cent dividend. He compliments the 
managers for their skill and success, praises them 
because they have shown such persistency in 
prosecuting the rogues who have within the last 
six months been defrauding the bank, and wishes 
that every bank and commercial company would 
follow the same course; "for," says he, "this 
course is the only way to stop fraud." He then 
indulges in some general remarks on the subject 
of banking, and advises depositors to take very 
great care of their check-books, and to be very 
particular in their methods of filling out checks. 
Mr. Botley is not a brilliant speaker, neither are 
his remarks highly original, yet they are solid, 
after the English style, and he is solid himself ; 
and the motion which he seconds is of course the 
one which is to be unanimously passed, — that 
appears to be thoroughly understood. 

But every thing that is done at one of these 
general courts of the Bank of England must be 
done in red-tape style. The bank holds its charter 
under the crown, and the legislative enactments 
that hedge it about are many and complicated. 
Year after year, from the day of its birth, they 
have been added to, and there is not a passing 



A DIRECTORS' MEETING. 1 69 

year in which its representatives, or representa- 
tives of the bank-dealing public, do not go before 
Parliament with prayers for modifications of laws 
ruling the bank. And now at this meeting it is 
found that, in order to conform to law, an adjourn- 
ment must take place, and at the adjourned meet- 
ing a ballot will have to be taken on the dividend. 
All this simply because the last dividend, which 
was four and three-quarters per cent, must now be 
increased to five per cent. 

But this present meeting is not to break up 
without some little debate. A certain Mr. Jones 
rises and "wants to know " — wants to know what 
are the causes of the present great depression in 
the banking business, why the directors have done 
certain things and left others undone, whether the 
bank has been duly compensated for the work it 
has been doing in attempting to assist the govern- 
ment in converting its three per cents into two 
and a half per cents. 

He has seen that the bank has paid over to the 
government during the last year ^2,000,000 un- 
claimed dividends, and he desires to know how 
long these unclaimed dividends remained with the 
bank. 

This last question brings to mind a curious 
point relative to the business of the Bank of Eng- 
land. The dividends referred to by Mr. Jones are 
the interest payment upon the public debt. One 



170 UNPAID INTEREST. 

department of the bank is devoted to the manage- 
ment of England's debt, — is England's treasury 
department. All interest due upon the consols 
which remains unpaid for ten years is paid over to 
the government — covered into its treasury — from 
which it may, by certain processes, be reclaimed, 
if its owners subsequently turn up and prove their 
ownership. 

An immense sum thus stands uncalled for, — • 
ten millions of dollars a year. I had some little 
talk with an English banker on this, and he gave 
me these views on the matter. He said English- 
men were quite apt to cultivate the habit of keep- 
ing their money matters very much to themselves. 
This was peculiarly the case where they were 
married men, and heads of families. Wives and 
children were often kept in utter ignorance of the 
financial condition of husband or father. If the 
" governor*" paid the bills and kept up the estab- 
lishment, they were content, and asked no ques- 
tions, and neither wished nor expected to know 
the character or amount of his investments in 
three per cents, or in any thing else. 

With such carelessness in living the outcome 
must often be financially troublesome. The sons 
cut loose from the old home, and seek their for- 
tunes in the larger Britain abroad. The daughters 
get married, and make homes for themselves. 
And then, if the father die without making a will, 



A DIRECTORS' MEETING. 171 

there may be no one left behind who knows all 
about his personal estate, — how much it is, or 
where it is. Hence such extraordinary accumu- 
lations of uncalled-for English consol interest at 
the Bank of England and in the hands of the 
government. 

But I am getting out of that Bank of England 
shareholders' meeting. I was speaking of Mr. 
Jones and his speech and his questions. At all 
shareholders' meetings, the monetary world over, 
there is apt to be present the inevitable Mr. Jones. 
He is generally a retired capitalist, of rather mod- 
erate property and immoderate leisure, who owns 
small lots of stock in many corporations, and who 
is fond of attending corporation meetings, and of 
making a few remarks thereat, which are seldom 
of much account, and which receive only faint at- 
tention. Nevertheless Mr. Jones is often a con- 
venience. He may be depended upon to count 
one in a gathering which needs a certain number 
to make a quorum ; and is often a handy appointee 
upon a committee to count votes, judge of an elec- 
tion, or prepare resolutions. 

The model chairman always listens politely, and 
rather patronizingly to him ; replies courteously, 
but in effect takes, in fact, very little notice of 
either his schemes or inquiries. At this meeting 
the governor in the chair makes a response to Mr. 
Jones, which may, in many respects, be taken as a 
model for other governors and chairmen. 



172 FEW TITLES AMONG DIRECTORS. 

In putting the motion, which is in due form to 
be passed unanimously, — the motion for the divi- 
dend, — he states "that Mr. Jones read and thought 
a great deal, and was, no doubt, as well able as 
any of the directors to make up his mind as to the 
reason of the existing depression. He was sure 
Mr. Jones would forgive him for not detaining the 
proprietors by entering into the merits of the con- 
version scheme. As to the payment received by 
the bank, he would be glad to answer Mr. Jones 
afterwards in his room. He might make the same 
remark as to the various loans which the bank 
had managed in the last few years, before they 
paid over to the Government unclaimed dividends." 

The salary of the governor of the Bank of Eng- 
land is a thousand pounds yearly. The deputy 
governor is paid at the same rate, while the di- 
rectors each receive five hundred pounds a year. 
On the board of directors of the Bank of England 
are men whose names are known in the walks of 
trade and finance in the leading cities of all lands, 
— men who are some of London's most eminent 
merchants and bankers. Yet there are on this 
board only two persons whose rank, in respect to 
titles, is higher than esquire. One of these is a 
right honorable, and the other is a baronet. The 
Bank of England selects for its managers men 
whose merit lies in their real financial ability, not 
in their social status. To be a director in the 



BANK ELECTIONS. 1 73 

Bank of England is an honor which the most sub- 
stantial of London's kings of trade and finance may 
well covet, while the position of governor of the 
bank is unquestionably the highest financial post 
in the world. On the list of men who have held 
this place are the names of London merchants 
whose reputation and financial position are known 
on the exchanges of all the great financial cen- 
tres of the world. 

The annual election of Bank of England officers 
takes place early in April in the directors' room. 
The governors, directors and proprietors nomi- 
nally do the electing ; but the attendance of share- 
holders is usually very light, and, on many of 
these occasions, only a few formal votes are re- 
corded. The directors, in effect, really fill their 
own vacancies and choose their own successors, as 
is commonly the case with American bank boards. 
The directors are always expected to recommend 
candidates for directorships to the proprietors, and 
it has rarely happened that the proprietors have 
not followed these recommendations. In one nota- 
ble case, that of the introduction of the Hebrew 
Rothschild into the board, it is said that a very 
strong outside pressure was successfully brought 
to bear upon a board which was at first deter- 
mined that the Jewish banker should not form 
one of its number. 

The directors of the bank are not all drawn 



174 A RIGID RULE. 

from the mercantile classes, as formerly. Bankers 
are eligible when not directors of other banks, but 
all directors must be shareholders in the bank. 
The directors meet every Thursday. 

The bank allows no over-drafts, and makes no 
advances upon land or real estate of any descrip- 
tion. The Bank of England transacts all of the 
treasury business of the English Government, and 
manages entirely that seven hundred millions debt. 
In regard to the matter of the advances made upon 
paper by the bank, I noted the interesting fact 
that it was the bank's regular rule to require all 
persons for whom bills had been discounted to 
take up at once all unmatured bills which had 
been discounted for them, whenever it appeared 
that the acceptors. of the bills had suspended pay- 
ment. This rigid rule of the bank has, like many 
other of its regulations, been brought before parlia- 
mentary committees, from time to time, for inves- 
tigation and modification. There is in London, at 
all times, a strong force of financiers who, year 
after year, attempt to secure, by legislation, all 
sorts of changes in the bank's management ; but 
these reformers make slow progress. The Bank 
of England does a large business in receiving 
deposits of money from persons opening new ac- 
counts current, who wish merely to put their money 
in the safest bank in the world, and have no desire 
to see it earning interest. The bank also receives 



BANK HOURS. 1 75 

and stores in its strong rooms, free of charge, chests 
of plate and other valuables belonging to heavy- 
depositors. 

The Bank of England rarely discounts bills 
which have more than two months to run. The 
bank was formerly so encumbered with ancient 
forms and rules that few ordinary merchants and 
traders kept accounts with it. But its methods 
have since been thoroughly reorganized, and it has 
now all the facilities for doing a modern style of 
banking business. Neither at its head office nor 
at its branches does it allow a single penny of 
interest upon deposits. It looks to the average 
of the depositors' balance as compensation for re- 
ceiving his deposits and paying his checks. 

It now takes on many very small accounts. At 
one time it would pay no check under ten pounds, 
but its customers can now draw upon it checks of 
any size. 

The bank's hours are from nine till five ; and, in 
the matter of time-keeping with its clerks, it is 
very systematic. If an officer reaches the bank 
late three times he is called before the directors, 
and, if their reprimand does not reform him, he 
is discharged. An arrival book is kept open be- 
fore the clerks. Those who arrive before nine 
write their names above the black line which is 
drawn to separate their signatures from those 
which are made by late clerks. All the clerks are 



176 BANK PHYSICIAN. 

given annual vacations, and an average of fifty 
out of its thousand employes are always absent on 
vacations. These vacations vary in extent, being 
graduated by the length of time the clerks have 
been in the bank's employ. 

Nine families of bank employes live within the 
bank, and several of its chief officers live in a court 
near by. The bank has a pension system for its 
employes, and keeps a physician in daily attendance 
at its offices. When officers absent themselves on 
plea of illness, the physician visits them and re- 
ports upon their condition. A very large propor- 
tion of its staff are young men. It receives in its 
employ boys of eighteen at a salary of eighty 
pounds a year, and these persons either work their 
way up or down and out. 

The bank holidays are Good-Friday, Easter- 
Monday, Whit-Monday, the first Monday in Au- 
gust, Christmas-Day, and the day following. 

This gigantic bank, whose methods we have 
been endeavoring to explain, was projected by 
William Paterson, a Scotch speculator of an impe- 
cunious kind who had made a bad miscarriage with 
that great colonization scheme known as the 
Darien Expedition. It received its charter in 
1694. Its original capital was twelve hundred 
thousand pounds, which sum was lent at a good 
rate of interest to the sovereigns William and 
Mary. Its charter has been many times renewed. 



STRONG ROOMS. 1 77 

To-day the Bank of England has a capital of 
,£14,533,000, deposits of about forty millions 
sterling, and a circulation of ,£25,000,000. 

My tour through the bank ended in the di- 
rectors' rooms, and I turned away from the great 
temple of finance, after tendering my thanks to the 
chief accountant for his attentions. 

A sagacious humorist has said that the natural 
end of all banks is "to bust* up." If this be the 
fate of the Bank of England, when is it to occur ? 
In what coming time shall some successor of mine, 
some financial tourist from New Zealand or the 
Congo, wander over the grass-grown pavements of 
Lombard Street, Cornhill, Threadneedle Street, 
and King William Street, and gather from their 
associations and traditions facts relating not only 
to the rise and progress, but to the decline and 
fall, of the Royal Bank of England, which once 
reigned in that locality with more than regal 
power ? 

" Strong room " is the standard English name 
for what, in this country, is termed a large vault 
for storage of valuables, such as cash, bonds, and 
plate. I like this good old English name of strong 
room, and will use it as applying to safe deposit 
vaults the world over. Less than twenty years 
ago all the strong rooms in this country, which 
were used for storage of cash, bonds, and so forth, 



178 SPECIAL DEPOSITS. 

belonged to the banks and bankers, and were a 
part of their business machinery. Since that time 
safe deposit companies have been established, and 
they are now quite numerous in this country, 
having larger and better strong rooms than the 
bankers ever had. No one will ever know how 
many million dollars' worth of valuables are stored 
in one of these great safe deposit companies, for 
each customer has his own special lock-up within 
the great central strong room, and keeps his own 
keys and counsel. I shall be asked who is respon- 
sible to depositors for safe-keeping of all these 
treasures, and I reply that the company is respon- 
sible for the exercise of due care and diligence in 
the work it has undertaken, and what is demanded 
of it in these premises would have to be settled in 
the courts if any dispute in the matter should arise 
between some loser and the safe company. 

But of this I am sure. If one can imagine any 
contingency by which a great safe deposit com- 
pany should lose all its valuables, I can, without 
the exercise of any imagination, see that they 
could not pay for the stupendous loss. Since the 
establishment of safe deposit companies the banks 
of this country have pretty much given up caring 
for the special deposits of their customers. This 
they have done for two reasons, — one, that they 
have become alarmed about the great responsibilty 
this increasing business was throwing upon them ; 



SAFE DEPOSITS. 1 79 

and the other, that the banking department at 
Washington has taken the ground that it is no 
part of the regular business of a bank to take care 
of the special deposits of its customers. 

I found the banks and bankers of London and 
Paris still going along in this matter as we used to 
do. There is only one regular safe deposit com- 
pany in London, the "National," and that has not 
been a success. Attached to all great banks of 
London are strong rooms much larger than any 
thing of the sort our banks have ever had ; and in 
these the regular customers of the banks are per- 
mitted to store their bonds, money, plate, and so 
forth, without charge. Inside these strong rooms 
are ranged great numbers of small safes, in which 
the depositors place their treasures, retaining their 
keys, and visiting them when they please. 

The business we have been describing has of late 
years so vastly increased in London that its bankers 
have become greatly alarmed over their responsi- 
bilities. This alarm has recently been deepened 
by the fact that they have met with some large 
losses from some of these strong rooms by the 
dishonesty of their clerks. Though they have 
never acknowledged themselves responsible for 
the property in their hands, they have so far 
thought it best to pay for these losses, since they 
have believed that any other course would injure 
their reputations and their business. London 



l8o SAFE DEPOSITS. 

bankers are now proposing to make a charge for 
special deposits, and openly assume responsibility 
for their safety. 

In Paris, where I found that the United States 
type of safe deposit companies has not come into 
vogue, the bankers make a common custom of re- 
ceiving special deposits of valuables in their strong 
rooms, and always charge a commission for the 
care of these deposits. And the Parisian custom is 
the one generally followed on the Continent. The 
modern strong room of this country and Europe 
is a marvel of ingenuity, strength, and mechanical 
skill. I have watched the construction of one of 
the best that ever was made, from the setting of 
its first foundation-stone to the turning of its last 
lock. The work began by the deep setting of 
immense blocks of granite, so that neither burglars 
nor fire could enter from below, and went on, by 
the erection on every side of the most invulnerable 
walls of iron, steel, brick, stone, and cement, and 
ended by the application to doors of hardened 
steel of combination locks of the most perfect 
description. And when the mechanic had finished 
his work, the whole machinery of protection was 
placed in the hands of watchmen by night, and 
tried managers and clerks by day, and connected 
by burglar electric alarms with military and police 
departments. But, after all, its most vulnerable 
point is its danger from an attack from the inside. 



THE STRONGEST ROOM IN THE WORLD. iSl 

Banks and companies of trust have always suffered 
a hundred times more from dishonest employes 
than from thieves without. 

I have elsewhere mentioned that the safe de- 
posit business had advanced so little in London 
that there was only one safe deposit company in 
the city that amounted to any thing ; and that that 
concern had, so far, been lightly patronized, less 
than a quarter of its thirty thousand safes having 
so far been rented, and its only dividend having 
just been reached. Its great vault, which is a 
strong room within two other strong rooms, is 
eighty feet long, forty feet wide, and forty-five 
feet high. 

I don't propose to give all the details of its 
construction ; but the reader who may think of 
putting his bonds within its walls of iron, stone, 
undrilled steel armor plating, and hard-blue bricks, 
may be assured that London's safe-builders have 
done their best here. Here are outer walls of 
hard brick-work in Portland cement, with a back- 
ing of hydraulic concrete, — in all, twenty-one feet 
thick. Next comes an insulated structure, made 
of fire-brick, and London's famous hard-blue brick, 
three feet thick, and coated with four and one-half 
inches armor-plate. Inside this house within a 
house are thirty-two corridors of safes, with doors 
weighing four tons each, which are opened and 
shut by hydraulic power. 



1 82 ENGLISH BANKERS. 

The foundation floors are of concrete twenty 
feet thick. The whole establishment is guarded 
by twenty-one years' service men from the corps of 
commissioners, armed with revolvers, and it can 
be flooded from the main of the New River Water 
Company at a moment's notice, " in the extreme 
event of a social disturbance," as it is all under 
ground. I was amused at hearing that the com- 
mittee of the Confederate bondholders had selected 
this fortress as a place of deposit for their precious 
rags. 

A banker, who has done heavy business with 
banks both sides the water, concedes that in the 
matter of vaults and safes the bankers and banks 
of London are better equipped than any other 
bankers in the world. All the leading banks of 
London advertise their willingness to receive and 
care for the valuables of their depositors without 
any charge. 

I found the banking men of London, as well as 
those in charge of the country banks of England, 
intelligent, progressive and courteous. It was 
natural that I should make pretty close observa- 
tions in their field of work, and for this purpose I 
visited many banks in the city and in the interior. 
The rooms usually occupied by them are exceed- 
ingly plain, almost always finished in very dark 
woods, and often located in retired positions. Tel- 
lers, and other bank officials, with whom a person 



ENGLISH BANKERS. 1 83 

travelling upon a letter of credit is apt to be 
brought in contact, appeared to be expert in their 
business, and the head managers were always gen- 
tlemen of cultivated manners and pleasant ad- 
dress, who were more than willing to linger a while 
over a payment to an American for the purpose of 
discussing the methods and machinery of banking 
in the United States. They were just as ignorant 
of our national banking system as we are of the 
banking system of England, and no more so. 
There is one little point about the machinery of 
English banks which I must particularly mention. 
In the matter of stationery used by them — in 
the preparation of all their blanks, such as checks, 
letter-heads, bills of exchange, notices and circu- 
lars — they show a taste, accuracy and thorough- 
ness that might well be copied here. The laws 
and customs governing the details of English 
banking business are, of course, very like ours, 
for we have generally copied from them. I was 
interested in observing, while in London, that 
"Story on Bills of Exchange" was several times 
quoted in a banking lawsuit. 

I am confident that English bankers, and, in 
fact, the higher class of English business men 
generally, are rather more in the habit of living 
two lives than are the same classes in our country. 
By this, I mean that they have a habit of quietly 
sinking the shop, to which they have given during 



184 ENGLISH BANKERS. 

business hours the closest attention, as soon as 
they are out of it, and of giving themselves over 
to quite absorbing hobbies of one sort and another. 
The result is that they often become men of taste, 
culture and general intelligence. 

In London banking, as in English railroading, 
I found many unfamiliar names standing for very 
familiar things. The lines have their "metals," 
"vans," "trucks" and "guards," — terms whose 
meanings I have elsewhere explained. The banks 
give to their officers, and to the duties of those 
officers, titles which I had to have explained to me, 
though I had supposed, when I came in contact 
with London bankers, that I was entirely conver- 
sant with English as "she is spoken." 

What we here call a bank-messenger is, in Lon- 
don banks, termed an out-teller, or collecting clerk. 
His duties are very much the same as our bank- 
messenger, though he has some few methods not 
common here. When he starts out from the 
bank upon what is there termed his "walk," he 
leaves behind him a record of the route he is to 
travel, and the collecting, notifying, and present- 
ing he is to attend to on what the London banks 
term their "walk-book." 

In this way the bank is kept informed of the 
whereabouts of their absent messenger, a bit of 
information that must be highly appreciated. In 
our banks and offices the inquiry " Where is that 



THE OUT-TELLER. 1 85 

messenger ? " has become a note of interrogation 
as familiar as " Where are the police ? " 

The London collecting-clerk, or out-teller, inva- 
riably has his wallet strapped to his body with 
chain and belt, a practice which has in some cases 
been copied here, and ought to be here more 
widely in vogue. The drafts which he takes upon 
his route for presentation for acceptance he always 
leaves with the drawees, who have twenty-four 
hours in which to return them to the bank. Next 
to the collecting-clerks, whose duties I have de- 
scribed, come the bank porters. 

The English "bank manager" is an official 
corresponding quite closely to an American bank 
cashier or working bank president. The London 
bank manager is the head man in the bank under 
the directors. I think the London bank directors 
are accustomed to take quite an active part in 
the management of their institutions, for I noticed 
that the custom of having a director for the week 
is generally kept up there. English banks have 
no bank presidents, though the governor of the 
Bank of England holds a position similar to that 
of president. 

It is an interesting fact that, with the single ex- 
ception of the old Bank of England, there is not 
a joint-stock bank in the United Kingdom over 
fifty years old. Before that time all the banks of 
England were private banks. There have been 



1 86 BANK METHODS. 

times in the history of banking in Great Britain 
when the most extraordinary reverses were ex- 
perienced in the business. Notably was this the 
fact in 1 8 19, when, out of nine hundred and forty 
private banks in England and Wales, two hundred 
and forty became hopelessly bankrupt, or were 
forced by reverses to go out of business. Another 
panic in the banking business came in 1825. 

" Limited " is a word now attached to the title 
of many an English corporation. The word sim- 
ply means that the companies have been formed 
under the " Limited Liability Act " of 1862, which 
holds each shareholder liable only to the amount 
of his shares when fully paid up. Joint-stock and 
private banks throughout the kingdom are quite 
in the habit of allowing interest upon deposits, 
but the Bank of England never does this. 

"Cash credits" at banks are a great institution 
in Scotland, and are not uncommon in other parts 
of the United Kingdom. This is a convenient 
and simple piece of banking machinery which was 
invented in Scotland nearly two hundred years 
ago. The business man who puts up with a 
bank's sureties or securities on the promise that 
he will do all his business with the said bank 
draws upon that bank, from time to time, for such 
money as he needs, not exceeding the amount for 
which he has furnished guarantees, and is, of 
course, charged interest only upon what he draws. 



BANK METHODS. 1 87 

Bankers in England will not open an account 
with a married woman without the consent of her 
husband ; and, in case of the marriage of a female 
customer, the signature of her husband is neces- 
sary in order to draw the money. 

Bank of England notes, five pounds and up- 
wards, are a legal tender in all England and Wales, 
except at the Bank of England and its branches ; 
but not in Scotland or Ireland, where coin only is 
legal tender. As the Bank of England notes are 
never issued a second time, they are made upon 
much thinner paper than is used by the banks of 
Scotland, which keep in circulation a large issue 
of one-pound notes, and which apply to them no 
such a rule as the Bank of England regulation I 
have named. 

In most English banks the clerks are not al- 
lowed to made erasures upon the books. I have 
known American banks which have set up this 
English rule, and I believe the idea to be a good 
one. Erasing has helped along large bank defal- 
cations. 

I found in some large London banks an "ar- 
rival book." This was kept where each officer 
could handily put down his name when coming in 
in the morning. The banks of London keep open 
from nine till four, except on Saturdays, when they 
close at three. After nine a black line is drawn 
■across the page of the open arrival book, and 



1 88 LONDON CLEARING HOUSE. 

those coming after nine must write their names 
below the prompt line. 

* 

A very large part of the work which would nat- 
urally fall upon London collecting clerks is done 
through the great London Clearing House located 
in Lombard Street, and managed by a committee 
of most active London bankers. The hours for 
morning clearing are from 10.30 to 12; for the 
country clearing, 12 to 2.15; afternoon clearing, 
2.30 to 4. The regular city bank clearing is just 
like ours. 

Although the London Clearing House was set 
up more than a hundred years ago, it was at first, 
and for a very long time, confined in its uses ex- 
clusively to private bankers. It was not till 1854 
that the joint-stock banks of London were ad- 
mitted to its settlements. In 1855 the work of 
clearing country checks was added to its mission. 
At the date of the admission of the joint-stock 
banks, a rule was made that all the banks and 
bankers that were members of the London Clear- 
ing House should keep accounts with the Bank 
of England, and settle their clearing differences by 
checks on that bank, and I found that this was 
the present rule. 

With the introduction of the country check in 
the London Clearing House came of necessity the 
rule that country banks, wishing to enter this 



LONDON CLEARING HOUSE. 1 89 

clearing, must have in London agents, either 
banks or bankers, who were members of the 
London Clearing House. And upon the checks 
drawn upon these country banks by their deposi- 
tors is always printed conspicuously the name of 
the London Clearing House agent. 

When country checks of this class are deposited 
in London banks they are at once charged in 
through clearing to the London banks which are 
their agents. But, though sent in daily, pay is not 
received for them until the morning of the third 
day after they have been sent in. As the clear- 
ing for country checks does not take place till 2. 1 5 
p.m., and as it is an iron rule in London banks 
that all country checks must be sent home for col- 
lection the very afternoon of the day they are de- 
posited, it follows that the corresponding clerks 
of the London banks must do a deal of late-in-the- 
day work. All checks that are returned from the 
country unpaid for any cause must be returned 
to the city bank owing them before 12.30 o'clock 
■of the third day after their entry into the clearing 
house. This method of clearing country checks 
by a London clearing necessitates the keeping of 
credit balances by the country banks at their Lon- 
don agencies, for overdrawing is not a common 
feature of banking in England. 

I was struck by the fact that the mail facilities 
:>f the kingdom seemed to be of the most perfect 



I90 SUPERIOR COLLECTING METHODS. 

character ; and, in the application of these facili- 
ties to the collection, for London accounts, of 
checks drawn upon all parts of the United King- 
dom, a rapidity and promptness is obtained that 
eclipses us. 

In conversations with London bankers I com- 
pared notes on this point, and I had to concede 
that American collecting methods and machinery 
were far behind theirs, and, in getting my own 
drafts on London cashed in Scotland, and in vari- 
ous parts of England, I had practical demonstra- 
tion of the perfection of English collection systems. 
Great use is made of the wires in this business. 
London banks are quite in the habit of making 
their depositors no charge on country collections ; 
and, where any charges are made, they are light. 
It should, of course, be remembered that the col- 
lecting area of England is strikingly limited com- 
pared with ours, and that in this little territory of 
theirs they have thirty-four hundred banks, while 
we have, in all the United States, only about two 
thousand national banks. Nevertheless, English 
banking methods are most admirable, most pro- 
gressive, and contain many features which we 
should at once copy. They laughed at me in 
English banking circles, when I told them we 
made all drawers of checks identify themselves, 
and said they never could get through a day's 
business in London banking if the same identifica- 



PROFESS 10 A' A L AUDITORS. 191 

tion rule was there applied ; and they wondered 
how we could get along without crossed checks, 
and commissions on small deposit accounts. 

* 

There is one sort of examination of banks in 
London which is a regular thing, though it is not 
known at all here, and which we trust does really 
amount to something. The chartered accountants 
of London are professional auditors, and, as such, 
they are regularly employed to make what are 
supposed to be most thorough examinations of the 
banks, doing this as representatives of the share- 
holders. We have no profession in America cor- 
responding to this one, though our professional 
experts in accounts come the nearest to it. The 
English chartered accountant is educated exclu- 
sively for the profession which he is to follow, 
graduating from the " Institute of Chartered Ac- 
countants in England and Wales," whose head 
offices are in Copthall Buildings, London, E. C, 
where stated preliminary, intermediate and final 
examinations of candidates are made, and certifi- 
cates of graduation issued. 

I found it quite common in London for these 
chartered accountants to do business as firms con- 
sisting of several members ; and some of these 
concerns are of ancient and very high standing, 
and transact a large and most responsible business. 
One of the leading items of work attended to by 



192 PROFESSIONAL AUDITORS. 

this profession is that of the examination and 
general overhauling of the books of great bank- 
rupt concerns. When great failures occur in Lon- 
don, it is the usual custom to place all the books 
at once in the hands of a firm of chartered ac- 
countants, and little else is done in settlement of 
the affairs of the bankrupts until these account- 
ants have made a full report to creditors. 

It has appeared to me that there was room for 
such a profession in our American cities, since 
much of the work of examination of assets and 
liabilities of bankrupt houses, which is now put 
into the hands of attorneys who often have not 
been specially educated for such business, could 
♦be profitably given to special and recognized 
accountants of position and authority. 

* 

Rates of interest upon solid London invest- 
ments, though low, are not in such surprising con- 
trast with the income from the same class of 
securities here as they once were, since the mone- 
tary world has, during the last decade or two, been 
brought near to a dead level of interest by well- 
understood influences. 

Both in London and New York I found three 
per cent net readily accepted by an immense class 
of investors who wished their means to be where 
they would be as secure as in the Bank of Eng- 
land, and also where the amounts invested would 



CONSOLS. 193 

take on an annuity form, or, at least, something 
approaching that. 

The class of investors in the United States who 
willingly buy a three per cent United States bond, 
with the hope it will never be called, is in London 
represented by a class which pays a slight premium 
for English consols, a security which is about as 
good as our government bond. I found I had not 
exactly understood what these consols were, and, 
as there is a possibility that others may not have 
comprehended their exact nature, I venture on a 
note of explanation. Every one understands, of 
course, that the term consols is used for consoli- 
dated three per cents. 

Consolidated three per cents stand for the 
funded debt of England, which, starting two hun- 
dred years ago, when some extravagant king bor- 
rowed one million sterling, has now reached seven 
hundred and thirty millions sterling. Now when 
my reader next takes up his English monetary 
reports, he will find quotations of this character : 
Consols, 102 ; reduced three per cents, 10U ; new, 
10 1. These three quotations all apply to consols, 
and the reason for the different names is found in 
the fact that they are different issues, and the 
reason for the variation in price is that the interest 
upon them is payable at different times. Consols 
are always quoted fiat, and some carry more 
accrued interest than others. 



194 COA T SOLS. 

The interest upon most of the consols is payable 
quarterly ; but purchasers can obtain stock with 
interest payable annually, and some do this. I 
have mentioned that the present rate of English 
income tax is fivepence in the pound. But from 
time to time this rate is raised or lowered, as the 
needs of the treasury may dictate. 

Incomes under one hundred and fifty pounds are 
not taxed at all, and there is a partial exemption 
where incomes are under four hundred pounds. 
There is no income tax levied upon government 
pensioners. 

The purchaser of consols receives a certificate 
which states that he is a holder in the funds ; and, 
when the interest is due, he either goes, or sends 
by attorney, to the Bank of England, and collects 
his regular interest. Under the income tax, which 
is at present fivepence in the pound, a deduction 
is made of this tax from the gross interest col- 
lected. The three per cents are the most popular 
security in England. They are favorites because 
they are considered so solid, and also because they 
are so convenient. There are two sayings current 
among English investors which embody the popu- 
lar view of them. One is, " Blest is the man who 
is content to put his pounds in three per cents ; " 
and the other, "The sweet simplicity of the three 
per cents." Many United States investors hold 
this stock, believing it as good as the United 



A POPULAR INVESTMENT. 1 95 

States bonds, and are led to this by the idea that 
it is not wise to put all their eggs into one Ameri- 
can basket. On the other hand, United States 
bonds are very popular in England, because Eng- 
lishmen consider them good, and also because they 
pay a fair rate of interest. 

The interest upon consols proper, or the old 
issue, is payable January 5 and July 5. The " re- 
duced " and "new" three per cents interest is 
paid April 5 and October 5 ; and, as these securi- 
ties are always sold flat, this varying time of their 
interest maturities accounts for the variations in 
their quotations. One of our best informed finan- 
cial writers has just been saying to me, that it is 
a curious fact there are no certificates of consol 
proprietorship, but that the owner of property in 
the public funds has his name registered, and the 
sum he owns recorded on the English treasury 
books, these records being all there is to show his 
ownership. I have noticed that this is the general 
impression in American financial circles. Our 
friends have never seen an English government 
bond, and really don't believe there is any such 
thing. But there is, nevertheless ; and they are 
in small as well as large denominations. Any 
person who wishes can go to any post-office in 
England that has a savings-bank attached and put 
in from twenty to one hundred pounds, and in a 
short time receive, through the same postal sav- 
ings-bank, a certificate of consol stock, 



196 COSMOPOLITAN INVESTMENTS. 

To fill these postal orders, the general post- 
office in London employs brokers who go into the 
market and buy the government stock on the best 
terms they can. Heavier investors in British 
governments do not patronize the post-office. 
They buy direct through their own brokers. The 
English postal banks also make a business of col- 
lecting the maturing government interest for the 
small investors. In the English stock and bond 
markets there are what are termed settling-days, 
for the settlement of all purchases of bonds and 
shares, as well as for the settlement of transactions 
in sterling exchange. The settlement days in the 
share and bond market are usually the first and 
the middle of the month. A "bought," or con- 
tract note, bridges over the transactions. It is a 
fact, novel to American shareholders, that English 
railway companies charge 2s 6d for making a 
transfer. All transfers are also subject to a gov- 
ernment transfer stamp. 

London capitalists are cosmopolitan in their 
investments. At the London Stock Exchange the 
daily movements in bonds and shares call up the 
names of companies and kingdoms located in 
almost every corner of the habitable world. Brit- 
ish capital and British financial enterprise follow 
the beat of England's drum in its circuit around 
the belted globe. I hastily summarize the regular 



FINANCIAL REPORTS. 1 97 

plan of "The Times's " reports of the money- 
market. 

This London money article first gives the city 
rates for time and call loans, and the prices for 
foreign bills of exchange. Then follows a state- 
ment of the Bank of England, with a glance at 
the leading features of its regular return, if one 
has just been published. " Funds " are then 
quoted, "funds" being English government bonds. 
Other monetary points follow in this order : The 
home railway market, the Canadian railway mar- 
ket, the American (United States) railway market ; 
the foreign bond and share market, embracing a 
field stretching through every country owning a 
railway or issuing a bond, from the Argentine 
Confederation to Patagonia and New Zealand. 

These reports are supplemented by a resum^ of 
the condition of the money market in all the 
leading cities of the world, and the state of the 
local markets for wheat, provisions, cotton, cloth, 
etc., in all the principal cities and towns of the 
kingdom. This is indeed a "financial" with a 
sweep, and the facts in it are generally presented 
in a clear and able manner, without the waste of a 
word or a figure. The English merchants and 
bankers who work the great financial and business 
engine, whose vibrations are noted in this money 
article, are an active, progressive set of men, ready 
to grasp at every new business i^lea and method, 



I98 SOUND ENGLISH METHODS. 

and there is in their methods and machinery a 
dash and expertness which commanded my admi- 
ration, though I had come to England with the 
idea that London bankers and merchants were a 
slow and old-fashioned set. 

It is very true that some of their modes of do- 
ing business are precisely the same as they were 
two or three hundred years ago. But it by no 
means follows that all the old ways in these 
premises were clumsy and undesirable, or that 
they should be discarded simply because they are 
old-fashioned. 

This is a point that was entirely overlooked 
by some lively banking friends of mine from the 
West who, on the deck of our returning steamer, 
spent a deal of time in denouncing all the Eng- 
lish business methods and machinery they had 
come in contact with, ending with the stereotyped 
charge that " those fellers" were clinging to cus- 
toms as old as the foundation of the Bank of Eng- 
land. A banker myself, I do not hesitate to say 
that in the matter of banking very many of our 
best modes of procedure are direct importations 
from England, and that there are in force there 
to-day many practices and methods in ''banking 
and broking" that we could adopt at once with 
great advantage, and we are the "old fogies" be- 
cause we do not do so. We are, for instance, 
behind the age in not establishing the use of 



INTEREST ON DEPOSITS. 1 99 

crossed checks, clearance systems for country 
checks, and many other desirable English money 
methods. In illustrating the "dash" of London 
banking methods, I recall a conversation I have 
had with a gentleman long an active member of 
a great London banking-house. Said he, "You 
have an idea we are slow and mighty careful, yet, 
in some points, we are far less so than are you 
New York and Boston bankers. For instance, we 
have a custom of turning every day all our foreign 
exchange into the hands of dealers who give their 
special attention to such drafts. There is a regu- 
ular settling day for all these bills (mostly Conti- 
nental), and we do not receive our pay for them 
until, some days after, we pass them over to the 
bill broker. Yet we never have a thing — not a 
i scrap of a receipt, or voucher — for them, and we 
| do not hear from them till we get our money." 
i Such is London business conservatism. 

* 
It is becoming more and more the custom of 

both the London joint-stock banks and the private 
banks to allow interest upon all deposits. But, in 
the case of the first-named institutions, the practice 
is to gauge the rate of interest allowed by the offi- 
cial minimum of the Bank of England, the current 
rate it has set for discounting bills, placing their 
rate on deposits just one per cent below the Bank 
of England's discount rate. There are serious 



200 INTEREST ON DEPOSITS. 

objections to this long-established custom, and 
many London bankers are in favor of breaking it 
up. The principal objection is found in the fact 
that the Bank of England's minimum is not by 
any means in steady harmony with the current 
outside rate for discount of bills. It was remarked 
by one thoroughly conversant with this matter, 
that the Bank of England's minimum was, in fact, 
the market rate for bills for only certain periods 
of the year, and under normal circumstances, and 
that it was often very much above the outside 
rates. The private bankers, who regulate their 
interest rates upon deposits entirely independent 
of the action of the Bank of England, are much 
more advantageously situated in this matter than 
are the joint stock banks. One feature of their 
management of this business is the habit of chang- 
ing their rates of interest much oftener than the 
Bank of England. With the single exception of 
the Bank of England, which pays no interest upon 
deposits, all the banks and bankers of London are 
great borrowers of money. 

The Bank of England is a sort of regulator of 
English rates for loans upon first-class security. 
But there is a class of " banks " in London, and in 
other leading English cities, that have a style of 
their own for doing business. 

I have preserved an advertisement of a speci- 



RATES OF INTEREST. 201 

men London institution of this class which I saw 
in a north of England paper, in which it had been 
inserted for the purpose of picking up trade among 
the needy ones in the country districts. It termed 
itself "The Charing Cross Deposit Bank," with a 
capital of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, 
and announced its readiness to lend money with- 
out sureties. It also offered to advance upon 
furniture, trade and farm stock, plant crops, etc. 
" Easy payments. Strictly private. Call, or write." 

London rates of interest are generally low, 
viewed from a Western stand-point, yet even in 
London extremely high rates crop out in the ad- 
vertisements in the newspapers, and in the court- 
rooms. I have in mind a London money-lending 
case, which was brought before Mr. Justice Chitty, 
where Messrs. Morris & Benjamin had charged a 
borrower of twenty thousand pounds at the rate 
of sixty per cent. 

The tempting rates offered for loans through 
the columns of the London journals — rates rang- 
ing from eight per cent upwards — indicate that 
adventurers there, as well as here, are endeavoring 
to induce men with means to embark in schemes 
of a very doubtful character. There is probably 
no city where there are so many swindling finan- 
cial and business schemes thrust before the public 
as in London. Companies for every imaginable 



202 LONDON BANK DIVIDENDS. 

object, of all dimensions, are steadily before the 
investing public with the most seductive prospec- 
tuses, many of which are as big swindles as can 
be conceived. I recall one of these frauds which 
came to the surface while I was in England, where 
a ring of adventurers had actually succeeded in 
inducing honest investors to take shares in a bank 
they were setting up in Manitoba, with a claimed 
capital of thirty-five million dollars ; and in other 
companies connected with this banking scheme 
which were just about as gigantic and fraudulent. 

* 
I noticed, in visits to various London banks, 

that the counter arrangements were about the 
same as ours. We have copied the English bank- 
ers' methods and machinery in these and in very 
many other points. There, as here, the tellers 
stand behind the bars and hold money intercourse 
with the dealer through a low-down hole in the 
wall ; and there, as here, thieves lie in wait to 

steal in between. 

* * 

* 

LONDON BANK DIVIDENDS. 

Here are some specimen figures of good pro- 
portions : The Union Bank of London has paid 
at the rate of fifteen per cent per annum the last 
three and one-half years, and its last dividend is at 
the same rate. From eighty to a hundred thou- 



BANK CLERKS AND STOCK SPECULATION 203 

sand dollars a year has been added to this reserve 
fund for many years. What we term surplus fund 
is in England styled a bank's "rest." It is laid 
aside for the avowed purpose of using as a divi- 
dend resource when earnings fall off, or are re- 
duced by losses. The Union Bank carries a loan 
of fifty million dollars, and its "rest " now amounts 
to a very large sum, while its deposits foot up 
about seventy-five million dollars. The last divi- 
dend of the Alliance Bank was at the rate of seven 
per cent, and it has a rest amounting to one mil- 
lion two hundred thousand dollars. The Adel- 
phi has just paid at rate of eight per cent ; the 
National Discount Company, at the rate of thir- 
teen per cent per annum. 

The English banks and bankers have a rule that 
their employes shall not speculate in stocks, and 
Rule 56 of the London Stock Exchange House 
somewhat vaguely forbids, or, rather, cautions, 
members against dealing with clerks in public and 
private establishments without the knowledge of 
their employers. London bankers are demanding 
that for this mild rule shall be substituted one 
peremptorily expelling from the London Stock 
Exchange any broker carrying on the business 
last named. 

I have known of instances in the United States, 
and have heard of them in London, Paris and 



204 DIRECTORS FOR A WEEK. 

Liverpool, where brokers have gone on for years 
doing a losing business for bank officers, and where 
the losses were by the hundred thousand on salaries 
of a few thousand a year. It is for the correction 
of such crimes as these that London proposes to 
rule brokers guilty who take part in them. 

Not long ago the London Stock Board discov- 
ered that one of their number had been dealing 
for an employe in the well-known house of Baring 
Brothers & Co. The board at once promptly sus- 
pended him for four years ; and a leading London 
journal, in commending this action, said it could 
not fail of having good results. 

* 

I have elsewhere spoken of the fact that it is a 
very common custom to pay directors in English 
corporations for prompt attendance at board meet- 
ings, and that this fact made many of the nobility 
and gentry more than willing to serve on as many 
boards as they could find time to attend. But, 
though this practice of feeing directors is coming 
into vogue with us, another English custom, which 
is still maintained there, is not as common with 
our banks as it once was. I can remember when 
it was the general habit with the American banks 
to have a "director for the week," who was, during 
his week, to attend specially to the management 
of his bank. 

The method of selection was just like that in 



HOW LONDON SANA'S ARE EXAMINED. 205 

ogue in London to-day. A rota, or roll, of the 
irectors was made, showing the order in which 
le individual directors should be taken in turn. 
n some London banks the term of office of this 
irector is fourteen days, and I observed that the 
uties of the London director for the week were 
y no means nominal. One part of his duties was 
) go each morning to the safes in the "strong 
)om," and take out and place in the hands of the 
ibordinates of the bank such cash and securities 
5 might be wanted for current use during the day. 
i.t the close of business he would bring up to the 
:rong room the money and securities not used, 
ritializing the entries showing what disposition 
ad been made of those used. There is a deal of 
astern and red tape in the administration of some 
[ the London banks. 

Fault is sometimes found with the way bank 
[rectors in American cities examine the banks 
rider their management ; but it seems to me 
iey do the work fully as well as the average of 
ondon directors. I have known of an instance 
I London where in court, after a tremendous 
sfalcation of a leading officer in a London bank, 

was proved that at the directors' examination 
lly the wrappers of the securities were looked 
, that brown paper might easily have been passed 
f on them for Egyptian bonds, that securities 
ere shifted while directors' backs were turned, 



206 HOW LONDON BANKS ARE EXAMINED. 

and that London bank directors were quite fre- 
quently in the habit of simply looking at labels 
and wrappers when they made their periodical 
examinations. 

I have had considerable experience in the mat- 
ter of examinations of our banks, both by national 
bank examiners and bank directors, and can tes- 
tify that I never knew of an instance where such 
loose inspections as this one just described were 
indulged in. 

Those financial students who have an idea that 
failures in business are not quite as frequent in 
England, and not of such disastrous character as in \ 
the newer and more progressive countries, should 
read the bankruptcy columns of " The London 
Times." Here are to be found records of some 
of the most scandalous explosions, — failures for 
hundreds of thousand pounds, with the smallest 
assets. 

I picked up some English statistics relative to 
bankruptcies in the United Kingdom which are 
rather unique. In a series of eight recent years, 
it was found that Scotch bankrupts paid an average 
of nine shillings the pound ; Irish, seven shillings 
and seven pence ; English, six shillings and a 
half-penny ; Welsh, five shillings and a half-penny. 

While wandering about London, and looking 
upon financial names which had long been famil- 
iar to me, I saw the name " London and West- 



LONDON AND WESTMINSTER BANK. 207 

minster Bank" over the entrance of its stately 
central office, and fell in with its great branches 
in various parts of the kingdom. A few points of 
the history of the rise and progress of the famous 
London and Westminster are of peculiar value, 
for they well illustrate the way of life of many of 
England's most famous banks. They have gen- 
erally had what I may term an individual origin. 
The London Westminster was formerly Jones, 
Lloyd & Co. ; and Jones, Lloyd & Co. was, to the 
modern financial English and American world, 
simply that wonderful individual tower of moneyed 
sagacity, strength, prudence and honesty, Lord 
Overstone, who half retired from public view a 
quarter of a century ago, although he has only 
recently been borne to his grave at the age of 
nearly ninety. It used to be said of one of Bos- 
ton's ablest merchants that he had, by nature, fit- 
ness for the Church ; and that, if he had entered 
it, he would surely have been a very solid doctor 
of divinity. Lord Overstone, who lived and died 
a devout Christian man, always said that he would 
have liked the Church, and would surely have en- 
tered it, had he followed the inclinations of his 
boyhood. His father was in early life a clergy- 
man, but, marrying the daughter of a Mr. Jones, 
who was a Manchester banker and manufacturer, 
he gave up his clerical profession, and went into 
partnership with his father-in-law in the establish- 



208 CHRISTIANITY IN BUSINESS. 

ment of the house of Jones, Lloyd & Co. of Lon- 
don. Lord Overstone succeeded to the business 
of his father in 1844, which business he conducted 
with the highest success, the house under his 
headship becoming one of the soundest and larg- 
est private banking concerns in the world. But 
Lord Overstone's widest fame was attained by the 
far-reaching sagacity of his discussions in and out 
of Parliament, and his many papers upon theoreti- 
cal finance. He became the leading financial au- 
thority of the realm, and for a long life was the 
" consulting engineer " of England's banking and 
treasury department. 

Experience has convinced me that the best busi- 
ness men are those who are not completely ab- 
sorbed by their trade, and Lord Overstone's career 
is an apt illustration of the truth of this philoso- 
phy. He was a man of many hobbies foreign to 
the banking business, among which were passions 
for making art collections, and for literary pur- 
suits. And let me here put on record the noble 
Christian sermon written long ago by Lord Over- 
stone. His father used to say of him, " Sam has 
no rubbish in his head." There is certainly no 
rubbish in these, his own words, on his religious 
belief : — 

" I am, like yourself, a religionist and a Chris- 
tian, upon full and careful consideration. My de- 
cision was formed with a full knowledge that 



HARD MONEY. 20O, 

sceptical theories had obtained in past times, and 
will again spring up around us. But to these I 
pay no attention. My decision has been formed 
with the best use of the faculties with which I am 
endowed, and in it I have the concurrence, not 
unanimous, but of an overwhelming majority, of 
human intellect in every successive age. I there- 
fore stand by that decision with all its conse- 
quences, and will not consent that the question 
should be continually reopened. I refuse any at- 
tention to the disturbing theories of the present 
hour. They are mutable : they are not consistent 
with each other, and experience of the past teaches 
us that they will be evanescent." 

Turning from ethics to finance, I note that our 
great banker was a famous hard money man. He 
believed in paper money, but only in paper money 
that had the gold behind it, and he had much to do 
with framing legislation that was intended to keep 
the Bank of England strongly fortified with gold 
reserves. He believed in that precious gold metal, 
every ounce of which, as some one has graphically 
said, costs an ounce of gold in labor and material 
to gather it from its far-scattered hiding-places. 

Only once in Overstone's day did the old bank 
fail to respond with gold when pressed to redeem 
its issues. The only issue of a " Sunday London 
Times" took place in 1847, when, in the midst of 
a great panic, a Sunday slip from " The Times " 



2I0 PUBLIC RETURNS. 

office announced to the world that the Bank of 
En-land had secured from the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer the suspension of a provision of its 
charter, -had, in fact, temporarily suspended pay- 
Bankers under the national system of the United 
States will be particularly interested in the fact 
that this great London banker, Lord Overstone, 
was the originator of the system of making regu- 
lar public returns of the amount of bullion on 
hand in banks of circulation. Before his time, 
the Bank of England had always gone on the 
policy of maintaining the utmost secrecy in this 

regard. . , 

Lord Overstone's life shows how a man, inher- 
iting great wealth, and the management of a most 
far-reaching business which demanded the closest 
attention, may, at the same time, be a public-spir- 
ited citizen, a statesman, a Christian philanthro- 
pist, and a patron of art and literature. I- have in 
mind a banker in this country whose career has 
shown him to be, in many points, like Overstone, 
though he is not yet, by any means, so old a man 
as was the London banker. 

By his generous patronage of good causes, his 
aid to schemes for developing art in this country, 
and by his generosity to those who have helped 
him make his fortune, he has shown himself, per- 
haps without knowing it, to be a disciple of the 



LETTERS OF CREDIT 211 

head of the old London banking-house of Jones, 
Lloyd & Co. 

# 

In collecting payments upon a letter of credit, 
signatures alone satisfy bankers in England that 
the payments are being made to the right person. 
But their customs in these premises are best illus- 
trated by a chapter from my own experience with 
a letter of credit. Every traveller's letter of credit 
has attached to it a long list of banks and bankers 
where it may be presented and advances obtained. 
In the case of the bill I carried, this list stretched 
from Halifax to Jerusalem. But few travellers are 
aware that this list is, to a great extent, merely 
suggestive. The fact is, it is to be understood 
that the bill can be presented, and payments nego- 
tiated, with almost any banker of standing in any 
country named on the bill. And it is hard to 
imagine any civilized country on the face of the 
globe that is not glad to purchase of you a reliable 
sterling draft on London. Such drafts should sell 
at a premium almost anywhere. A shrewd Ameri- 
can friend, just returned from a tour around the 
world, says he almost always got a premium when 
he drew on his letter of credit from points away 
from London. 

The London Institute for Bankers holds its 
meetings in Finsbury-circus. Its president is 



212 LONDON BANKERS' CLUB. 

Richard Martin, M.P., and its membership is 
made up of the best bankers and general business 
men in London. At its gatherings, which are 
held monthly, the members discuss a wide variety 
of banking and business questions ; and experts 
from all countries appear, from time to time, be- 
fore the Institute with specially prepared papers 
on banking and finance. At one meeting we find 
the president opening the exercises with a presen- 
tation of his views upon the subject of the liability 
of banks and bankers for special deposits left with 
them by their customers, which address is supple- 
mented by a discussion of this topic in which 
many members participate. Then the chairman 
introduces an eminent Frenchmen who has, by 
invitation, run over from Paris to give the Institute 
a paper on the history and practice of banking in 
France, which will include an explanantion of the 
methods and machinery of the Bank of France, an 
institution which transacts business for the public 
in one hundred and fifty-six different towns, besides 
having a head office and eight district offices in 
Paris. And the French financier also tells them, 
in an incidental way, about the methods of the 
Bank of France in its great safe deposit business, 
which it has carried on so well, that no securities 
have ever been stolen from its strong room. 

On another evening the Institute may give its 
attention to recent Continental changes in laws 



BROKERS AND MIDDLEMEN. 213 

relative to bills of exchange and notes, discussing 
the new Commercial Bill Act of the three Scandi- 
navian kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Nor- 
way, a law which has set the United States a good 
example by abolishing days of grace. 

These are specimens of the topics that come 
before the Finsbury Institute, and suffice to show 
the wide and profitable range of their discussions, 
and the need there is for the establishment of in- 
stitutions of a similar character in America. 

Purchasers — consumers — in London, whatever 
may be the class of supplies upon which they are 
drawing, depend more upon brokers, commission- 
ers, and agents of that sort, than we do in the 
United States. 

An illustration from one department of London 
trade illustrates this. The commission merchants 
of the city depend almost exclusively upon brokers 
in disposing of their merchandise to the consumers. 
This is a custom that is upon the increase here, 
and is a practice that we have been and are still 
copying from London. In the transaction of the 
immense business of London there arises, of 
course, a necessity for a large class of these nego- 
tiators, and many of them have a standing and 
responsibility that is unquestioned. Yet I was 
surprised to note the independence of action that 
was allowed these broking concerns, particularly 



214 BROKERS AND MIDDLEMEN. 

in the stock and exchange market, and the way 
funds and securities were by custom, and even 
law, allowed to remain unaccounted for in their 
hands till that special London institution, " settle- 
ment day," came around. 

Readers accustomed to glancing at London 
market reports must have noticed that there are 
settlement days for all sorts of stock, exchange, 
and general trade operations. 

My friend in Bishopgate Street, who receives in 
the way of trade all sorts of Continental exchange, 
passes the same over to his broker, gets no 
voucher at all from him, and awaits in a confi- 
dence supported by custom till settlement day 
for exchange comes around with the money for his 
bills. The law fully recognizes these methods and 
customs. A guardian wished to invest for his 
ward fifteen thousand pounds sterling in Continen- 
tal securities. His broker said he had purchased 
them on settlement day, and gave his principal a 
" bought note," a regular London institution in 
the memorandum line. The broker had not bought 
the bonds, and ultimately absconded with the 
money. The court of appeals and the House of 
Lords acquitted the guardian when he was sued 
by his ward, saying that custom and law author- 
ized the bought-note method. 

Since 1870, when the national school system of 



OPPOSITION TO THE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 21 5 

England was established, a common school educa- 
tion is placed within the reach of every child in 
the kingdom. English parents, of the artisan class, 
who have had schooling experiences in both old 
and New England, have assured me that their 
children made better progress in their studies in 
England than in the United States. And they 
furthermore claim that the allotment of studies is 
more satisfactory in England than here to the 
parents of children who wish their boys and girls 
to acquire a practical education, — an education 
adapted to their position and prospects in life. I 
found that reading, writing, arithmetic and his- 
tory were taught in the common schools of the 
kingdom, while other branches of education were 
left almost entirely to schools of another class. 
The national schools were met, at their start, by a 
decided opposition from the Established Church. 
And even to this day they are under the ban of 
this church. 

Quite recently a prominent Church of England 
divine openly expressed his alarm and his regret 
over the fact that the education of the children of 
England had so largely fallen into the hands of a 
school system which considered it no part of its 
duty to teach the pupils the religion of the Estab- 
lished Church of England. The " high " wing of 
the English Church is particularly hostile to the 
national schools. The leading men in this branch 



2l6 SCHOOLS. 

of the Church loudly lament what they term the 
encroachments of infidelity and scepticism through 
the influence of the secular teaching of the national 
schools. 

But these opponents of England's national 
schools have a school system of their own which 
is entirely after their heart. Their pet schools 
are established under their National Society for 
promoting the education of the children of the 
kingdom in the principles of the Established 
Church ; and, in the schools under this organiza- 
tion, more pupils are to-day being taught in the 
kingdom than in the national schools. 

The national Church schools have in charge 
2,385,374 pupils; the national board schools, 1,298,- 
746; the Roman Catholic schools, 269,231; the 
Wesleyan, 200,909. There is one fact, relative to 
this school question, which seemed novel to me. 
I visited in England common schools of the various 
classes, and often met with their teachers and the 
pupils out of school. I also gave no little time to 
the study of the educational system of the country. 
I found that these common, nominally free schools, 
which have been in many points modelled after 
the common schools of the United States, are 
almost entirely patronized by the children of the 
humble classes of the country, — by the very poor, 
by the agricultural laborers, and by the artisans. 
The kingdom is full of private schools which are 



BOARD SCHOOLS. 217 

supported by the patronage of the classes other 
than those I have named, and vast numbers of 
children are sent to private schools on the Conti- 
nent, single lists of which, to the extent of five 
thousand, I have seen advertised in London papers. 
I have spoken of the national, Church and other 
common schools of England, which are mainly 
filled by the children of the humbler classes, as 
being modelled after our own free schools. But 
it ought to be stated that the children are charged 
a small school-fee. This, although a penny or 
two a week, becomes quite a burden to a poor 
man, having, as is so commonly the case with 
England's poor, a large number of school-needing 
children. This fee is remitted, to be sure, when 
parents are willing to say they cannot pay it, but 
England's poor laborers are proud, and, therefore, 
very reluctant to acknowledge themselves paupers; 
for the claim for the return of the school-fee 
amounts to this. I observed that the school 
boards often found themselves placed in a singular 
position in this matter of school-fees. They were 
obliged to instruct teachers to send pupils home 
whose school-fees were not paid. And, at the 
same time, if the parent is found not keeping his 
children in school, he is liable to be summoned 
into the police court. 

I was interested in seeing the throngs of little 
children, all of the poorer classes, tramping along 



2l8 SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS. 

the London sidewalks, books in hand, on their way 
to the board schools, which are what we should 
term the common schools of the city. Yet they 
differ from our common or free schools in several 
points, one of which is the practice just men- 
tioned, of making a small tuition charge against 
each pupil. 

A little note about one of these board schools 
will be interesting as illustrating the methods and 
machinery of all of them. It stands in the heart 
of one of the poorest districts of London, and its 
buildings, made of stone and brick, have cost 
seventy-five thousand dollars, and will accommo- 
date twelve hundred children, each of whom pay 
four pence a week tuition. Opposition to this 
tuition-fee often crops out most decidedly, and 
many of the parents say they wish they had the 
ragged schools again, for those cost them nothing. 

At the time I was in London, the metropolis 
was going through with elections of members of 
the school board, and the exciting discussions over 
the question of the merits of the various persons 
who presented themselves as candidates for these 
positions incidentally led to an active canvass of 
the whole board school question. I noticed that 
one of the charges oftenest made against the 
board schools was that they did not pay sufficient 
attention to instruction of a technical character, 
an objection which had a decidedly home-like 



EXPENSE OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 2ig 

flavor. Candidates for positions on the board 
adopted the style of appealing to electors through 
advertisements in the leading papers. 

The London school board is a triennial one, and 
election takes place November i. It has been in 
existence twelve years, and consists of fifty-two 
members. Once every three years a struggle, 
which has been termed a heterogeneous scramble, 
takes place for positions on this board. 

Only a small proportion of the expense of 
running the common schools of England is paid 
by the school-fees. The London school board 
pays, for instance, a million and a quarter sterling 
annually for the expenses of its schools, and of 
this amount it receives only about one hundred 
thousand pounds sterling in the way of annual 
school-fees. The school-teachers of both sexes 
in these schools are paid very small wages, and 
occupy a much more humble position socially than 
the same class in the United States. I found 
them quite often bearing the appearances of over- 
work, close confinement, and not over-generous 
living. I could not but notice the significance of 
an incident or two bearing upon this question of 
the social position of the common-school teacher 
in England. In one case, I heard that one of 
these teachers, who had for thirty years been an 
instructor in a parochial school, which had been 
rotated out of existence by the establishment of 



220 TEACHERS' SALARIES. 

national schools, had taken to the road as a beggar, 
and had been arrested for asking alms. In another 
case which I happened to hear of, a male school- 
teacher got into court through marrying in haste, 
and somewhat irregularly, a tap-room bar-maid. 

England's school-teachers are very much better 
paid than formerly, yet in some portions of the 
kingdom their remuneration seems small to an 
American. There, as here, the best salaries are 
paid to teachers in the largest cities and towns, 
and London heads the line. Its board schools 
divide their teachers into six classes, made up of 
the trained and untrained. The salaries of the 
male teachers range from sixty to one hundred 
and fifty-five pounds a year, and of the women 
from fifty to one hundred and twenty-five pounds. 
It will be observed that there are no such discrep- 
ancies between the male and female teachers as 
exist with us. 

Many Londoners grumble over what they term 
the exorbitant salaries paid the city school-teachers, 
and at the meetings of the London school board 
speeches are made, sounding much like those we 
hear in our school boards, denouncing the extrava- 
gance of paying school-teachers so much more 
than hard-working shopkeepers' assistants are 
able to earn. I think the teachers in the London 
board schools work very hard, — much harder than 
teachers here. The scholars are almost entirely 



TEACHERS' SALARIES. 221 

children of the humblest classes. Many of them 
come to school in a ragged and half-starved condi- 
tion. I have known of instances where the board 
school-rooms were thrown open at an early hour in 
order to give destitute children food, warmth and 
shelter. Lunches are, in many cases, provided at 
school for the poor children at public expense. It 
will readily be inferred from these facts that the 
teachers must have to do a deal of disagreeable 
"police " work. 

In Scotland the teachers in the Presbyterian 
schools receive, on an average, sixty-nine pounds a 
year; in Wales, seventy-eight pounds. In Denmark 
school-teachers' salaries range from eighty-six to 
one hundred and thirty-five pounds ; in Ireland, the 
average is forty-five pounds ; in Berlin, the lowest 
salaries paid male teachers is sixty-three pounds ; 
in Alsace-Lorraine, forty-eight to sixty pounds. 

These figures are curious, since they show how 
low rates of wages for so-called instructors of the 
rising generation are running in Britain and on 
the Continent ; yet the real value of the statistics 
can only be got by accompanying them with a full 
description of the general character and social 
status of the teachers of the various countries 
named. I saw and talked with many country 
pedagogues in England, and visited some schools 
on the Continent, and from what I saw and heard, 
I received the impression that the average Euro- 



222 CROWDED RURAL SCHOOLS. 

pean school-master and school-mistress are about 
up to the standard of ours in the days of our 
grandfathers, though training-schools are steadily 
raising the profession. 

The village school-master in England has "no 
sort " of a social position. Another school inci- 
dent, that came under my observation, illustrated 
the influential position of the vicar of a parish in 
the matter of school affairs. One of these clergy- 
men was brought into court in connection with an 
assault case growing out of his peremptory dis- 
missal of the parish school-master. The vicar and 
the lord of the manor generally rule in an English 
village. 

In the rude, barn-like school-houses in England's 
rural districts, I found over-crowding and poor 
ventilation quite common. Then, again, there, as 
well as here, the cramping, confining school regu- 
lations, necessary in order to attain any approach 
to successful results from teaching under such 
unfavorable circumstances, render the situation of 
the pupil most uncomfortably restricted and en- 
tirely unnatural. 

As a consequence there was heard,, in many 
quarters, a clamor about overworked scholars, and 
a deal of talk about various sorts of diseases, and 
troubles with the eyes, such as chronic weaknesses 
and near-sightedness. But the more advanced 
thinkers were found arguing with much force thaf 



THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSES OF ENGLAND. 223 

these school debilities came from causes other 
than over-study. And, as far as school pressure 
was concerned, it was proved conclusively that the 
standard of Great Britain was, age for age, the 
lowest in Europe. This last is a most interesting 
fact, since I had been led to look upon England as 
occupying a foremost position in educational mat- 
ters. Mismanagement and under-feeding at home 
are, it is claimed, leading causes of the ill-health of 
English school-children. 

I was much interested in my many visits to 
rural school-houses by the resemblance of their in- 
teriors to the old-fashioned school-rooms of New 
England. While we have progressed into more 
convenient and more attractive school-buildings, 
the English school-houses, having been built of 
stone and brick, and built to last hundreds of 
years, often remain just as they were long before 
the landing of the Pilgrims. The extreme plain- 
ness, even roughness, of the finishings and furnish- 
ings of these old school-houses surprised me. Yet 
the associations clustering around these buildings 
were more interesting than any thing else about 
them, for the traveller has pointed out to him the 
very seats — rough benches of oak — upon which 
once sat and studied men whose names to-day are 
identified with the literature, the politics, the wars 
of a time which appears very remote to us. 

As an evidence of the age and permanency of 



224 CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 

English educational institutions, I recall the fact 
that quite recently the buildings of the Dorches- 
ter (England) Grammar School were found to be in 
a rather dilapidated condition, and the school com- 
missioners finally concluded to erect new ones in 
their place. The buildings taken down had been 
used, without a break in their career, as school- 
houses since 1571, or more than fifty years before 
Dorchester, Mass., received the emigrants by the 
Mary and John. 

Corporal punishment, once more common in 
America than at present, was one of those old 
England notions that we imported, and which is 
still in high favor in the mother-country. I found 
the teachers in the national schools quite liberal 
in the use of the rod. Once in a while I would 
hear of instances where irate parents prosecuted 
teachers for what they deemed unwarrantable pun- 
ishment of their children. In one case, I noticed 
that a prosecuting parent won his case ; not be- 
cause the child got a very severe whipping, but 
because the rod was applied by an under-teacher 
when the head-teacher was the only one legally 
allowed to do the strapping. In looking over the 
reports of these cases, I received the impression 
that the justices were generally inclined to sup- 
port the whippers. 

James Russell Lowell has said of the United 
States, that it is the most common schooled and 



SCHOLA RSHIPS. 225 

teast cultivated nation upon the face of the earth. 
England's national and Church schools, and her 
:ompulsory education laws, give her just about as 
much common schooling as any nation needs. 
But she is deficient in means for furnishing the 
children of the middle classes with an education of 
1 grade higher than that furnished by the national 
schools. This fact is becoming fully recognized 
oy the advanced thinkers of England, and the 
public demand for this middle class education is 
greatly upon the increase. There is one feature 
:>f the London board schools which particularly 
pleased me. These schools have a certain number 
:>f scholarships, worth from forty to fifty pounds 
sterling, open to freest competition, the success- 
ful candidates being given opportunities to receive 
:wo years' education in high class schools, the 
sums named defraying the cost. These scholar- 
ships are open to both boys and girls. 

On the boards of school inspectors, which cor- 
-espond very nearly to our board of supervisors, 
many very eminent men and women do service at 
salaries which do not seem extravagant. For in- 
stance, Matthew Arnold is a school inspector at a 
salary of three thousand dollars. 

-At the races the little fellows, in the traditional 
^ay toggery of the turf, upon their unique and 
:iny racing saddles, attracted my attention about 



226 ENGLAND'S JOCKEYS. 

as much as any other feature of the course. Such 
riders as Fred Archer, Tom Cannon (who won 
with the American horse Iroquois), Charley Wood, 
and George Fordham are great lions in their cir- 
cle, light of weight as they are. Their modes of 
handling horses in a race are something that one 
who has any taste for the horse cannot easily for- 
get. There is something quite monkey-like, to my 
way of thinking, in their position and action when 
in a contest. 

They sweep by you, as you watch the running, 
with the speed of the greyhounds, leaning for- 
wards, as if anxious to even get ahead of the gaunt, 
clean-limbed thorough-breds beneath them, not 
forgetting, the meanwhile, to ply the whip most 
vigorously, and to do something in the way of 
stimulating the animals by yelling at them. 

Turf pictures have done much towards making 
the appearance of these jockeys familiar to most 
readers. But one can get little real idea of their 
most unique points except from actual sight of a 
"school" of them skimming the field at some 
great race. Some of these jockeys, who are favor- 
ite retainers of the great turf patrons, like the 
Dukes of Westminster and Hamilton, Sir George 
Chetwynd and the late Count de Lagrange, make 
a deal of money, own fine studs of horses, and ele- 
gant places in the country. But these jockeys 
have to make hay while the sun shines. By and 



THE BRITON'S ELEPHANT 22*] 

by they get stout and can't ride. The minimum 
weight is under six stone seven pounds ; for I 
heard it stated that it ought to be raised to that 
amount, since " it was positive cruelty to keep 
growing lads down by the present scale." 

* 

The Briton's elephant is his magnificent draught- 
horse, an animal which has been rightly termed 
the dray-horse of the world. When I first saw 
specimens of this splendid animal in the streets of 
London and Liverpool, or saw the stalwart fathers 
of these Clydesdale giants making their slow jaunts 
for service through the farming districts, I was 
surprised, and filled with admiration. 

Lincolnshire and Yorkshire have long been 
specially famous for their breeds of draught-horses ; 
but it is in the great cities that one sees them to 
their best advantage, for it is there they are to be 
viewed at their work of drawing, with apparent 
ease, loads heavier than I have ever before seen 
behind a single horse. Some of these animals 
weigh a ton and a half. 

String teams and light-weight dray-horses are 
at a discount in London ; for the traffic of this 
immense city, which is steadily growing heavier 
and more encumbering, demands the use of single 
teams of the largest capacity, — teams that require 
the minimum of human attendance, and the small- 
est space possible, combined with the largest 
possible carrying capacity, 



228 HORSES' TAILS. 

We have brought out of England some very 
fine specimens of these Clydesdale pullers, — a race 
of animals whose unique pre-eminence has been 
attained in England within the last twenty years, 
and largely through the exertions of Mr. Lawrence 
Drew, agent of the Duke of Hamilton. 

The saddle-horses, and the coach-horses of 
England, in fact, nearly all horses in what may be 
termed pleasure use, as compared with working 
use, wear the square " banged " tail. 

There is another horse-tail fashion which is, I 
think going out in England, before the decided 
opposition of modern individual and society pro- 
tectors of animals, and that is the practice of 
"docking," which was at one time more common 
in this country than it is at present. 

The painful and disfiguring operation by which 
a portion of the bone and flesh of the horse's tail 
is chopped off is a dangerous proceeding, for death 
from tetanus sometimes supervenes. Horses are 
still " nicked " in England ; but I am glad to say 
that this, too, which was quite common in America 
thirty or forty years ago, has here pretty much 
gone out of practice. In the English nicking of 
to-day, the muscles on the under side of the tail are 
divided by three or four transverse incisions that 
cut to the bone, and the tail then slung up in 
pulleys for a while, but this English notion has 
been rarely adopted here. 



HIGHS TEPPERS. 229 

But I do not believe that we have ever gone so 
far as did the English, at one period, in horse bru- 
tality, when they had a rage for cutting off the 
ears of horses close to their heads. From England 
we have also brought over the fashion of clipping 
horses. But there, as well as here, a strong senti- 
ment exists against this clipping. 

The finest horses I ever saw, and undoubtedly 
the finest carriage and saddle horses to be found 
in the world, can be seen in the London season on 
the roadways, and in Rotten Row, Hyde Park, 
London. To see the full tide of silks and satins 
under the saddle, one must visit Hyde Park during 
what London terms the morning (10 to 2) ; to see 
the driving, go to Hyde Park between the hours of 
3 and 8 p.m. I will not describe the magnificence 
and magnitude of the Hyde Park horse, saddle, 
and carriage show, for it is a topic upon which 
most travellers write ; but I will note one particu- 
lar point about the carriage-horse portion of the 
grand parade-ground which few notice, because 
most observers are not horsemen. And this point 
is what is termed the "park action" of London's 
splendid carriage-horses. Breeding and training 
aim at the most perfect development of this mag- 
nificent "park action," — aim at it through gen- 
erations of horse-flesh, and are only satisfied when 
something in the way of a pair of coach-horses is 



230 RACING. 

developed that is so high-stepping and dainty, 
graceful and proud, that the admirer of a good 
horse who has come from a country where little 
has been done in this direction stands before such 
animals lost in admiration of their capacity for 
proud display. 

The French carriage-horses which I watched 
hour after hour in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, 
amount to nothing beside these high-steppers of 
London ; and the best pleasure-horses that are 
driven in Paris are brought from London. In the 
great annual horse shows that are held in Lon- 
don, leading prizes are always given for " harness 
horses of the best shape, with park action;" and 
the "London Stand Stud Company's" horses are 
quite apt to carry off the prizes. 

The average American, who has not travelled in 
England, or made a careful study of the habits 
and characteristics of that country, is quite sure 
to hold the opinion that England is thoroughly 
given over to the patronage and support of horse- 
racing. He gets this idea from perusing a certain 
class of British novels, and from observing the 
fact that the leading English newspapers devote 
column after column to racing matters, and that 
Parliament adjourns for the Derby, where, in early 
spring, a million or two spectators cluster on 
Epsom Downs to witness the most fashionable 
horse-race of the year. He has also fallen in with 



RACING. 



231 



stray accounts of English hunting and horse- 
racing parsons, like Rev. Jack Russell, and has 
glanced at the cartoons in " Punch," all of which 
serve to deepen his impression that all classes in 
England, not excluding the clergy, believe in 
horse-racing. But there is another side to this 
question, about which it is quite possible they 
have heard but little. 

It is true that the leading races of England are 
attended by vast crowds. But the country is so 
densely populated, and is, at all seasons of the 
year, the resort of such an immense crowd of 
visitors from all parts of the Continent, as well as 
from more distant quarters, that shows of any 
importance draw immense crowds. But the usual 
character of the throng in attendance upon Eng- 
lish races indicates the status of the sport. 

I was present one Saturday in spring at a race 
at Alexandra, where a couple of hundred thousand 
spectators were in attendance. I have never any- 
where, or "any when," seen such a gathering of 
roughs of the lowest description, or witnessed so 
much gambling, betting, fighting and general 
rowdyism. I was told that the Alexandra races, 
from their close proximity to London, drew out an 
unusually "hard crowd;" yet all English races 
may be depended upon to bring around them a 
"bad lot." 

I was not present at the Derby ; but a member 



232 RACING. 

of my family seized his " Gladstone," and joined 
"all England" in the rush for that famous race. 
He came out of the racket whole and sound, yet 
ready to believe the statement made to him by an 
Englishman that all the rascals at large in the 
kingdom were at the Derby. "The Times" of 
next day set the crowd at .two millions. A mild 
estimate, undoubtedly ; for London, with its five 
millions, was what is termed emptied on Derby day. 

But though Parliament adjourns, it must be 
remembered that there is always a strong minority, 
that is increasing every year, which votes and pro- 
tests against adjournment, and a host of good 
citizens vho never patronize a horse-race. 

To be sure, all London is said to be at the 
Derby, yet one would not expect to meet Matthew 
Arnold there, or Mr. Gladstone, or Mr. Tennyson, 
or Canon Farrar. After all, racing in England 
has about the same "social standing," if I may 
use this expression, that it has here, though it is 
a more prominent institution than it is with us, 
because English people have more of wealth and 
leisure to put into it than we, and greater age and 
experience in the sport. By inheritance, they have 
taken on a habit of indulging freely in sports of 
the field, and their present bent in this direction 
is only a survival of sporting habits which were a 
necessity as a means of obtaining food in the olden 
times. 



RACING. 233 

An illustration of the point I have been consid- 
ering may be found in the fact that no class in 
England is more heartily despised than those dis- 
sipated and extravagant noblemen who have, in 
so many instances, wasted their substance on the 
turf. I remember well the bitter contempt with 
which an intelligent Scotch merchant spoke of 
the Duke of Hamilton, over whose estates the 
railway was at that moment bearing us, who had 
made himself notorious by his racing extrava- 
gances, and who, to pay turf losses, had sold and 
scattered a magnificent library which had been a 
family heirloom. As still further showing the 
dislike of racing entertained by many good people 
in England, I recall the fact, that, when a certain 
jockey-club not long ago proposed to set up a 
race-course at Leeds, thirty-five of the Leeds 
clergy, and many other leading citizens of the 
place, appeared before the government of the 
town, asking that the laying-out of the race-course 
should not be permitted, since its presence would 
be inimical to the best interests of the place ; and 
the council agreed with the petitioners, and re- 
jected the race-course which had been tendered by 
the jockey-club, after thanking them for their 
courtesy. 

Stepping into a neat little restaurant in the 
very heart of London, I asked the pleasant young 



234 HENS IN THE PANTRY. 

women, who seemed to be proprietors of the 
shop, if the eggs they were serving me were fresh. 
They assured me they were, and more, that they 
were very fresh, since they had just been laid by 
their own hens in the back part of the shop. 
And, sure enough, there the hens were, right in 
sight from the table where I was sitting, ready to 
furnish, in due time, more regular " hand-picked " 
eggs. 

I saw, not long since, placarded in a Boston 
window, " Fresh Coup Eggs ; " and, in passing the 
sign, kept wondering "what in time" it all meant. 
Finally I asked the egg-seller for an explanation, 
and he explained the mystery by saying he had a 
hen-coop in the back-yard and raised his own eggs. 
I was satisfied with the explanation, and so waived 
the matter of the spelling. 

In both these last-named cases the hen product 
offered was certainly more attractive than the 
raft of limed eggs all the way from Copenhagen 
and Rotterdam, that have, at some seasons of late, 
been poured into the New York market, and sold 
at such prices as to lead the Central Ohio Butter 
and Egg Packers' Association to loudly denounce 
the " infernal activity of the pauper hens of 
Europe." 

I have never met an Englishman who did not 
evince surprise to hear that in America the cow- 






WATER-CRESS. 



235 



slip (marsh marigold) and dandelion were boiled, 
and eaten as green food. They seemed to think 
such things should be considered only as fodder 
for cattle. But it should be borne in mind that 
the English cowslip, the wild flower found in Eng- 
lish pastures and hedge-banks of a color varying 
from almost white to a deep yellow, is of the order 
primita veris, and altogether different from the 
American cowslip, which is of the genus dodeca- 
thcon, and which is found only in the elastic sods 
of the meadows in which water abounds. Out of 
the English cowslip is made a wine believed in, in 
the English nursery, as a wonderful source of 
strength for weakly children. Though I did not 
find the dandelion on my English table with the 
beef, I found plenty of its root (taraxicum) in my 
English coffee. 

There is, however, one grass which grows with 
•us and also in England, and which is there eaten 
by every one, and that is the water-cress, which 
grows in rivulets, clear ditches and ponds. Its 
leaves, so pungent in their taste, are flourished so 
constantly before the plate of the American in 
England as a salad, that he finally begins to think 
:hat John Bull lives mainly on grass. The water- 
less is most extensively cultivated in the coun- 
:ies bordering on London, and that city's market 
>eems to be flooded with it. 



* 



236 SOLDIERING FOR A SIXPENCE. 

General discontent prevails in the rank and file 
of the British army, and desertions are a very com- 
mon thing. I heard the causes of this discontent 
quite fully discussed, and I here allude to some of 
them. The soldiers are the victims of poor pay 
and hard work. They are promised, when they en- 
list, a shilling a day, with food and clothing. They 
find, when they have enlisted, that they get a net 
wage of about a sixpence a day ; for half of their 
promised shillings go to make up the deficiencies 
in their rations and clothes supplies, and in the 
discharge of various petty regimental dues. They 
are told, when they enter the army, that their 
daily labors will be of the lightest description. 
But when in the service they find themselves, 
even in times of profound peace, subjected to the 
most inordinate and, as it seems to them, useless 
amount of drilling and sentry duty. I found the 
British soldier on his long and weary watches and 
guards everywhere in London. I have been in- 
formed that some of the Guards' battalions at the 
West End have hardly two consecutive nights in 
bed. A great number of sentries are ranged around 
St. James and Whitehall, sometimes a half-dozen 
within fifty yards. 

Another cause of the British soldier's discon- 
tent is found in the fact that the law and custom 
is to punish him in the most severe manner for 
trifling offences like the following : Drilled to 



CURIOUS ADVERTISEMENTS. 237 

death by an upstart non-commissioned officer, an 
awkward and badgered raw recruit from the coun- 
try "got mad," and made some uncomplimentary 
remark about the personal appearance of his drill- 
master. His sentence was two years' imprison- 
ment with hard labor. 

There are other reasons why the soldier deems 
his lot an unhappy and weary one ; and, until some 
of these sources of discontent are removed, there 
will remain existing in the British army an ele- 
ment of weakness of no trifling dimensions. 

The advertising columns of the leading London 
journals are instructive study for the student of 
English life and manners, and no American visiting 
England should neglect this sort of matter-of-fact 
literature. Here are a few peculiar specimens of 
the press-matter in question : — 

MRS. JONES wants a parlor-maid and a house-maid. Both 
must be tall. Two in family ; no fringe. Quiet place. 

I leave my readers to guess out that "no fringe" 
business. 

Here is an advertisement in the stock-broking 
line : — 

JOHN SHAW, stockbroker, opens speculative accounts with 1 
per cent cover. Deals at tape prices. Both tapes in office. 
Grants options at low rates without "distances." £21, 5s. com- 
mands ^2,000 stock. 

Mr. Shaw is evidently ready for all sorts of 
speculative accounts. 



238 CURIOUS ADVERTISEMENTS. 

"Alpha" advertises for an indoor servant. En- 
close photograph and address, and state religion, 
and where last employed. Piety and good looks 
evidently in demand in this case. 

A BREWER, who is the owner of a considerable number of 
tied trade-houses, and an old established tied-trade, is open 
to purchase a Brewery. Address, confidential, X. Y. Z. 

A gentleman of position and influence adver- 
tises his special facilities for getting up limited 
companies and introducing into their management 
strong directors. 

JAMES, 13 Enkel Street, advertises that he will sell for ^500 
quarter share of a patent ship that cannot sink or be burnt. 

Cheap enough ! Charles Neville, Brighton, an- 
nounces : — 

DELIGHTFUL Home Employment. Delightful work for 
willing hands. To pass the idle hours; to gather up the 
golden sands, that fall in countless showers. Write for full par- 
ticulars how to make money in spare time. 

LE MARS, in Iowa, advertises that he will receive 2 pupils 
on his farm, for moderate premium. 

Le Mars may be depended upon to give those 
boys something to do on his Iowa farm, upon 
which, under these "openings for gentlemen's 
sons" arrangements, they are always expected to 
pay for the privilege of laboring. 

There is in London, and in other English cities, 
a profession termed law stationers and partnership 
agents. I found these persons advertising their 



CURIOUS ADVERTISEMENTS. 239 

readiness to arrange new copartnerships, and se- 
cure capital for firms wishing to enlarge their busi- 
ness. That law stationers should carry on such a 
business seems novel to us. 

The business of taking on, in large brewing es- 
tablishments, articled pupils who pay large pre- 
miums where opportunities are guaranteed to the 
pupil of receiving chemical and microscopical in- 
struction in the brewery laboratories, is set forth 
in many an advertisement in the London papers. 
This brewery business is a tremendous one in 
England, and gentlemen's sons are often glad 
enough to get a chance to see the inside of it, 
paying therefor these heavy premiums. 

The English company director business is often 
managed in a machine-like way which is not well 
understood here. Thus, Saxelby & Faulkner, so- 
licitors, advertise that there are openings for two 
directors of high position who are willing to sub- 
scribe not less than five hundred pounds. The 
men who scramble for such openings as these 
must expect to get pay for their service in atten- 
dance fees and pickings and stealings. 

Here is an advertisement of the society class of 
a type not at all uncommon in the English press : — 

A GENTLEMAN and Wife, of large literary experience, edu- 
cated, and of good position, offer to take management of a 
household, or to travel as companions and secretaries. 

This is one of the notices that remind us what 



24O "PECULIAR PEOPLE.' 






varied services can be obtained for the money in 
old England. 



l O J 



I heard a good deal, while I was in England, of 
a singular sect of religionists called the " Peculiar 
People." They have a chapel in London, in the 
parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, and 
in this chapel they have been in the habit, for forty 
years, of holding four meetings a day on Sunday, 
commencing before breakfast, and closing with an 
evening preaching service. The congregation, as 
well as the leaders in conducting worship in this 
chapel, are the humbler class of people. The 
founder of this society was William Bridges, a 
block-maker ; and men and women of the laboring 
class were his early co-operators in the movement. 

Their method of worship resembles that of the 
earlier Methodists. Their belief in the matter 
of the treatment of all the ills that flesh is heir to, 
except those that are in the line of broken bones, 
and the like, which they give over to the surgeon, 
is unlike that of any other existing sect, hence 
their name of "Peculiar People." They place full 
reliance on the prayer cure, the scriptural method 
of the laying on of hands, and anointing with 
oil, and will not employ medical aid of any sort.. 
They take the ground that medical assistance may 
be summoned, and may be made useful where 
sufferers do not believe in the power of Christ to 



"PECULIAR PEOPLEr 24 1 

heal; but, as for the faithful, — as for themselves, 
— they are above and beyond any need of the ser- 
vices of the doctors. They claim to take the 
Bible for their sole guide, and point, in support of 
their views, to the fact, that, throughout the whole 
of the New Testament, there is no trace of the use 
of medical skill. There is no authority in Scrip- 
ture, they say, that God will heal broken limbs ; 
but he has said, "I will heal all manner of sickness 
and disease." But these peculiar folks think they 
have a very hard time of it in England, and believe 
their faith brings upon them unjust persecution. 

Their " troubles" come about in this way: 
Officers of the law drag them into court for allow- 
ing their children to suffer from typhoid-fevers, 
diptheria, and, in fact, from all sorts of illness, 
without the slightest medical attendance ; and, 
although the authorities might permit these mani- 
acs to neglect themselves to a certain extent, they 
will not willingly permit their innocent children to 
suffer through their folly. I was observant of 
several London cases where the vigorous judges 
gave these "anointers" lectures of the sharpest 
character, and fines and imprisonment, all of which 
they merited. In this country we have a cropping 
out of the " peculiar " belief, but it has not taken 
the obnoxious London character. 

* 
I observed, in England, any quantity of ignorant 



242 PREJUDICE AGAINST VACCINATION. 

"medical prejudices," and these are by no means 
confined to the Peculiar People. There are, for 
instance, many intelligent and quite devout people 
in England, persons within the pale of the Estab- 
lished Church and good society, who will not 
subject themselves or their children to vaccination. 
These profess to have conscientious scruples 
against the practice, founded upon the scriptural 
fact that the Bible has nothing to say about vac- 
cination, and believe that such an attempt to ward 
off disease is flying in the face of Providence. 
There is another class who denounce and resist 
vaccination because, to use the language of one 
of them who was arrested under the compulsory 
vaccination act, " Doctors are now coming round 
to the opinion that vaccination is a ghastly process, 
and not only a folly but a crime." 

The law — the judge — disposes of such foolish 
people by ignoring their pleas, and punishing 
them, as they should be punished, by fines and 
imprisonments. Dr. Jenner's shade rules England 
to-day, and vaccination is enforced with rigor. 

There is one peculiar fact relative to the preva- 
lence of small-pox in England, in these days, 
which I could not fail to observe as I wandered 
about in the country, and that is the presence 
everywhere of a very much larger number than 
one sees in this country of persons whose faces, 
show the marks of the ravages of this dread dis- 



GROUND RENTS. 243 

ease. It does not seem to have been stamped out 
as it should have been, and this may be largely- 
owing to the ignorant opposition to vaccination to 
which I have alluded, — an opposition fully deserv- 
ing the denunciation expressed by an English 
judge before whom one of these vaccination 
resisters was brought. " Fine him," said the 
judge, "no matter what may be his defence on 
the ground of his conscientious scruples, etc. 
Punish him. An unvaccinated child in a neigh- 
borhood is as bad as a mad dog." 

* 
Most of the land upon which London is built 
belongs to great landed proprietors, a large pro- 
portion of whom are titled men of high degree. 
Typical holders of this class are the Dukes of 
Bedford and Westminster, both of whom are pro- 
prietors of some of the finest real-estate properties 
in the metropolis. In my rambles about the city, 
I had pointed out fine squares and streets in 
the most central and most fashionable parts of 
London which were owned by these, and such as 
these, and also tracts of land belonging to them, 
and centrally situated, which were covered by 
the meanest imaginable dens and rookeries, all 
crowded to suffocation with the most filthy and 
poverty-stricken tenants. Here was land of great 
I intrinsic value, apparently, half wasted by its 
occupancy with buildings of the most worthless 
and tumble-down class. 



244 STREET-MUSIC. 

An explanation of this situation is found in the 
fact that these lands were under long leases under 
which sub-letting had gone on indefinitely, until 
the last leaser had found a rapidly expiring lease 
upon his hands, the shortness of which would not 
warrant him in putting up new buildings, since, in 
a few years, the land, and all upon it, would revert 
to its ancient lordly proprietors. Many of these 
great owners will soon find their incomes im- 
mensely enhanced by the termination of leases of 
eighty or a hundred years, that have been run- 
ning on rents, which are only a trifle compared 
with the present rentable value of the territories. 

English cities and large towns are a perfect 
paradise for street-musicians. Only a narrow 
channel separates England from the Continental 
home of the needy organ-grinder, the street string- 
bands and brass-bands, and they float over in 
strong force. 

Stray about town in London, Birmingham, New- 
castle, or other English cities at the close of any 
pleasant day in summer, and you will find a crowd 
hanging upon the strains of a German band of 
wind instruments in one street ; a string-band saw- 
ing their elbows with frantic violence in the next ; 
an organ-grinder vigorously grinding out his cranky 
music in the next alley ; and a species of piano on 
trucks, played also by turning a wheel, still far- 



WALKING ENCYCLOPEDIAS. 245 

ther on. The crowds listen, the hat goes its se- 
ductive rounds, the half-pennies fly in, the police 
stand by, and the performers are not ordered to 
"move on" unless the streets become too much 
blocked. 

The ruling majority goes in for street-music, 
pays pretty well for it, and stands up for the organ- 
man and the monkey, the brass-band and the fid- 
dles. A sensitive, nervous minority often sets up 
a howl of opposition against the wandering melo- 
dists ; and editors, and other brain-workers of the 
crowded towns, have been known to work them- 
selves up into an agonized opposition to them. 

" Walking encyclopaedias " can be had in Lon- 
don for the money. I have before me advertise- 
ments of various descriptions, wherein are set forth 
the talents and accomplishments of persons offer- 
ing themselves as amanuenses, private secretaries, 
and as helps in all sorts of ways, to persons en- 
gaged in literary work, or in public life. And the 
compensation demanded in England for such ser- 
vice seems small. Short-hand is an accomplish- 
ment now quite generally demanded in London of 
clerks and book-keepers. For one hundred pounds 
per annum the merchant there often expects to 
hire a clerk who understands both book-keeping 
and short-hand writing. It is more common in 
England than here for young ladies to hold posi- 



246 UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY. 

tions of private secretaries. One of the best helps 
to literary and general work in business and pub- 
lic life that I observed in English cities is the 
existence, in the heart of the cities, of large, ex- 
haustive reference libraries open to the public, 
and in charge of very accomplished librarians. 
London has even taken a step in advance of the 
reference library idea, by setting up the " Univer- 
sal Knowledge Society," an organization which 
has for its scope the work of answering promptly 
all the literary, political, art and science queries 
that are likely to come up. Its methods and ma- 
chinery have, so far, been most successful in their 
results ; and authors, cabinet ministers and mem- 
bers of Parliament are loud in its praises. The 
society has vast capabilities from a public point of 
view. 

* 
New opportunities are being constantly afforded 

in England for women to work at remunerative 

and not uncongenial occupations, and there is no 

other city which has so large a class as London 

of men and women of high social positions and 

ample means who are constantly devising new 

schemes for giving the right sort of work to the 

girls of the kingdom. One of the most successful 

experiments in the direction in question has been 

made at Lambeth, where the Doultons employ 

three hundred women in their art potteries. 



DOULTON POTTERY GIRLS. 247 

These girls commence at three and four shillings 
a week, and range upwards in wages till the skilled 
among them readily command twenty-five shil- 
lings, with the exceptional cases where women of 
rare talent earn as high as five guineas a week. 

The advance in the wages' of these pottery girls 
is graduated by their marks at South Kensington 
examinations. I note here, as a curious fact, that 
the Doultons have flatly stated that their greatest 
difficulty with their girls lies in the absence in 
them of any ambition. They are, say the em- 
ployers, patient, neat, accurate, satisfactory in 
morals, but without a spark of ambition; and, 
withal, rendered less persistent by the fact that 
the possible husband is always looming in the dis- 
tance. I have nothing to say regarding this blunt 
testimony. The successful Doultons, with their 
three hundred well-paid girls, must be held respon- 
sible for this verdict. 

Not long ago, noble London women determined 
that young women should have improved oppor- 
tunities to qualify themselves to serve as mer- 
chants' clerks and book-keepers ; and so they have 
set up free commercial schools for young women, 
where they are being instructed in the same man- 
ner that our young men are here taught in private 
commercial academies. 

In the border counties of Scotland I found 



248 FEMALE FARM-LABORERS. 

large numbers of women at work in the farmers' 
fields, often doing rough and heavy labor. I 
have lingered by the roadside and talked with 
these women. They seemed strong and healthful, 
but coarse, and far from neat in their appearance. 
They wore short dresses, heavy shoes, or none, 
and were oftener than otherwise without any head- 
covering. In the streets of Ayr, and elsewhere, I 
have often seen a large party of the female farm- 
laborers going to, or returning from, their work, 
driving along rapidly, at a sort of dog-trot gait, 
barefooted and bareheaded. 

These gangs of workers made long, hard days 
of it, weeding turnips, hoeing potatoes, "paddling" 
wheat, etc. These women were the wives and 
daughters of the agricultural laborers. These 
latter are called hinds in those border counties, 
just as they are termed in old English literature. 
And the "bondager" system, which we read of as 
having existed in England long ago, still prevails 
in some of the districts of which I am writing. 
Under the bondager arrangement the hind bound 
himself, on renting a cottage of a farmer, to allow 
his wife or daughter to work four weeks in time 

of harvest without pay, as an equivalent for rent. 

* * 

* 

In Scotch and English cities I found educated 
doctors charging, in their practice among the 
laboring classes, two shillings a visit. Apotheca- 



CHEAP READING. 249 

Ties' prescriptions, written upon the same system 
as with us, are put up on a much lower tariff. In 
walking over English country roads, I often had 
pointed out to me the country doctor, as he flew 
over the hedged-lined, smooth roads in the inevita- 
ble dog-cart or gig, — the doctor's "trap," as the 
people termed it, — always open, and generally 
equipped with a large carriage umbrella and a 
mackintosh. 

But while the charges are thus small in laboring 
circles of practice, "the regular fee of an accom- 
plished medical attendant in fashionable circles is 
a guinea a visit, medicines extra. Many of my 
American friends, who have had the misfortune to 
fall ill in London, are ready to testify to the kindly 
skill and heavy bills of London practitioners. 

There is no city in the world that has a more 
prolific press than London ; no city where you can 
purchase at a low price such an abundance of 
good reading ; and no city more cheaply supplied 
with books, papers and periodicals of a most 
wretched character. I found on sale, at all the 
book-stores, fair editions of the standard English 
novels at sixpence a volume, and a poorer edition 
at threepence. There are excellent newspapers 
in London that are sold at a penny, — standard 
journals, printed on good paper, containing leading 
articles of a high character, and a fair resiimi of 



250 CHEAP NEWSPAPERS. 

the news of the day. " The London Times V still 
clings to its old-time price of threepence, which 
is a reduction from its still older time higher price 
of sixpence. 

In all parts of the kingdom newspapers of a 
large size, but of a very low standard, as far as 
literary pretensions and tone are concerned, are 
published and sold at a penny ; in some instances, 
at half a penny. I had an idea, before I travelled 
in England, that it was a country where only what 
are termed the better class bought and read the 
first-class journals, and that second-hand copies of 
the leading London daily journals were deemed 
good enough for the middle and lower classes. 

I remember talking over this point with the 
landlord of the little "Wheat Sheaf" inn, near 
Shenley, a dozen or fifteen miles out of London ; 
and he told me how, fifty years ago, when he was 
a boy, and when stage-coaches from London rolled 
by his door, papers were scarce and high, "The 
London Times " costing about three times its 
present price. Then his father was glad to buy or 
borrow a two or three days' old London paper. 
Now I found, with breakfast chops at the " Wheat 
Sheaf," and on the morning tables at little inns 
far away from London, the morning's editions of 
"The Times," "Telegraph," "Chronicle," etc. 

In the cheapest workingmen's eating-houses in 
London, where the carpet was sawdust, and a cup 



FLASH LITERATURE. 2$I 

of coffee a penny or less, and where I have seen a 
crowd of workingmen gathered at six in the morn- 
ing eating their breakfast of bread and cold meat 
brought from their homes in their handkerchiefs, 
and only spending a penny for hot coffee or tea to 
wash it down, I have seen hung over the back of 
the rude stalls the leading London daily papers. 

And in the cottages of the poor papers were 
generally plenty. Going into the little one-roomed 
cottage of an old Scotchman, who had been a 
farm-laborer, but who was now too old to work, 
and was a pensioner upon Lord Somebody's es- 
tates, I saw the old man eating his dinner of 
bread and tea, and doing his own simple cooking. 
Yet I found the postman stopping at his door, and 
leaving regularly an Edinburgh paper neatly done 
up and addressed to him. 

But I observed, however, a class of periodicals, 
largely taken in and read by the humbler classes, 
which were as objectionable as they could be 
without being open to the charge of flagrant in- 
decency. These were printed on mean paper, filled 
with mean illustrations, while their letter-press 
was of the most sensational character, being made 
up of ''continued love stories" of an extravagant 
and unnatural type from the pens of a school of 
writers, whose names are, unfortunately, not unfa- 
miliar this side of the water, of whom G. W. M. 
Reynolds and W. H. Ainsworth may be said to 



252 FLASH LITERATURE. 

be the leaders. I have now before me one of 
these cheap, and, I am almost ready to say, nasty 
magazines. It is about the size of " Harper's 
Young People," contains twenty-five pages of 
closest print, a large number of hideous wood- 
cuts, is made up on the poorest paper, and is 
retailed at a half-penny. It has an immense cir- 
culation, and has reached its twentieth volume. 
The titles of the continued love stories in the 
number before me will clearly indicate the char- 
acter of this magazine. 

We have here "The Defeated Detective;" 
"Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf," a romantic story by 
G. W. M. Reynolds; and "The Miser's Money, or 
the Chamber of Death." 

Street-retiring houses, where the stranger in 
London, or the Londoner a long way from his 
home, may step in, and get a chance for a wash, 
etc., for a penny, are a great social convenience, 
and it is a pity its thronged streets are not better 
supplied with them. In Paris, and other Conti- 
nental towns, these places are numerous. In 
London, some of these houses have been put up 
by a company known as the Swiss Chalet Com- 
pany, Limited ; and its buildings, which are very 
neat in appearance and of an attractive style of 
architecture, are increasing in numbers, and it is 
an interesting fact that many of London's poorest 



LONDON STREETS. 253 

will go into these chalets and pay a penny for a 

wash. 

It seems to me that I have never, in any city in 
the United States, or in Europe, found the streets 
so clean and so well paved as in London. Not 
only are the leading avenues thoroughly paved, 
but every side street, and every little back street, 
appeared to be just about as handsomely and sub- 
stantially paved as the great main streets. 

I am confident that London streets are kept in 
a far smoother and cleaner condition than are the 
streets of Boston and New York, notwithstanding 
the enormous traffic and travel that encumbers 
them. Very many London streets are paved with 
wood, mainly with plain, rectangular blocks of 
Swedish deal. It was at one time quite a common 
practice to creosote these blocks. But the paving 
authorities have finally concluded that creosoting 
does not add to durability, and now the wooden 
blocks are put down in their natural condition. 

Out of London's two thousand miles of streets, 
over fifty miles are paved with wood, mainly with 
pitch-pine wood, though some oak, elm and larch 
are used. Here are the statistics for the remain- 
der : Macadam, five hundred and seventy miles ; 
granite blocks, two hundred and eighty miles ; 
asphalt, fourteen miles ; eight hundred miles of 
flints or gravel ; the remaining portion, with pave- 
ment of miscellaneous character. 



254 LONDON STREETS. 

The management of the paving, cleaning and 
lighting the streets of the city of London is still 
in the hands of the inhabitants of the parishes. 

The wide streets, which are the leading thorough- 
fares, are so full of the traffic of the great city 
that it is exceedingly difficult for a pedestrian to 
get safely across them. To aid him in his dash 
over them, small raised places of retreat are 
often placed in the centre of them around a lamp- 
post, — little islands, as it were, of stone and brick, 
which a venerable London acquaintance, who used 
often to walk the streets with me, termed " cities 
of refuge." 

The asphalt paved streets of London are ex- 
ceedingly slippery, especially when the weather is 
wet. The horses, donkeys and ponies which are 
flying over them in such crowds, and with such 
rapidity, are continually slipping down. I noticed 
many of these falls, as I wandered around London, 
and was much interested in noticing the way they 
helped up the fallen animals. 

It was a little thing, showing the perfection of 
system upon which most every thing is conducted in 
London, that, at regular intervals, along the street, 
there were placed near the sidewalks small piles 
of sand. Whenever an animal slipped, and fell 
upon the slippery pavement, there seemed a man 
ready to seize a shovel, and run with a lot of this 
gravel and scatter it under the horse, so as to give 



" STREE T SLIPPERS. " 255 

him a footing in his struggles to regain his erect 
position. The use of the gravel in this way 
seemed to be highly successful. 

In the Strand, as well as in the other popular 
thoroughfares of London, and the other great 
cities of England, the great crowd of pedestrians 
pouring through the streets do not, as with us, 
keep to the sidewalks. They make the most free 
use of the pave, and seem to take to it naturally, 
as if it belonged quite as much to them as to 
those who move about on wheels and in the saddle. 
In fact, it soon became quite evident to me, as I 
watched the tide of humanity which surged through 
the avenues of these old cities in the busy hours 
of the day, that the sidewalks were by no means 
large enough for their accommodation. 

There is another feature of London street man- 
agement which I have never seen elsewhere. This 
is a force of street workers in London, under city 
pay, of boys of the age of fourteen to sixteen 
years, who are termed " street slippers " in the local 
vocabulary of the town. These little fellows, who 
are about the age and general style of the London 
boot-blacks, are paid wages of a ninepence a day 
or so ; and their special duty is to keep the streets 
clear of the filth made by the horses. Each boy 
carries in his hand a small broom and a small box ; 
and the rapid, lively manner in which they dart 
among the flying teams and saddle-horses, and 



256 SEWAGE IN BRICKS. 

whisk into their boxes the manure of the street, 
rightly entitles them to the name of "slippers." 
The contents of the little boxes are emptied into 
larger boxes that are placed at regular intervals 
along the streets. These large boxes are daily- 
emptied of their contents by city wagons which 
unload in a city yard. From these city yards the 
street-sweepings are sold to the farmers, who take 
them by boat, railway and road to their lands. I 
was told in London that the sales» of the manure 
thus gathered far more than compensated for its 
collection. Thus the streets of London are kept 
clear of one sort of filth at a profit to the city. 

* 
A great problem in London is how to dispose 

successfully of the sewage of that immense sec- 
tion of outer London which lies for miles along 
the Thames. This portion, swarming with popu- 
lation, derives no benefit from the drainage sys- 
tem of London proper, which sends its sewage to 
Barking, and is forbidden by law to drain into the 
Thames. Having consulted the highest sanitary 
authorities, it is now believed to be best to carry 
all its sewage to a spot on the banks of the Thames 
at Mortlake, where it is to be at first treated by 
chemicals till a fluid, claimed to be but pure water, 
is allowed to run into the river. The sludge re- 
maining is, by the aid of canvas bags and an im- 
mense pressure, to be made into solid cakes, and 
sold to farmers for fertilizers. 



SEWAGE. 257 

A little way out of London, near Epping For- 
est, is one of those suburban villages which is one 
of a large number that have sprung up suddenly 
about London, and the growth of which has been 
very rapid. This one, about which I have rambled 
quite extensively, is called Leyton. Here are be- 
ing adopted some of the most advanced sewage 
methods. The town originally poured all its sew- 
age without hesitation into the river Lea. But 
the influence of England's river purification so- 
ciety, and other incentives, have led Leyton, Es- 
sex, to adopt the method of separating the solids 
of its sewage from its liquids by mechanical and 
chemical processes of the most ingenious and 
scientific character ; and its methods have been 
perfectly successful. The water left, after pass- 
ing through the manipulations named, pours itself 
into the Lea in a clearer condition than the river 
water with which it unites ; and the sludge, which 
has been precipitated in the processes, is sold to 
farmers at seven to eight dollars a ton. And all 
these sewage manipulations near Ruckholt farm, 
Leyton, are conducted in such an inoffensive man- 
ner that not the slightest odor is detected from 
the works ; and house-lots are in good demand 

along them. 

# * 

The fire-insurance business, like that of life- 
insurance, is claimed to be a product of English 



258 INSURANCE. 

ingenuity. In London it has grown to enormous 
proportions. There is not a civilized country on 
the belted globe that has not become stamping 
ground for the agents of these London fire offices. 
By English energy the business of these offices 
has been carried to the ends of the earth. It is 
estimated that the London companies alone cover 
fire risks amounting to over five hundred millions 
sterling. There are London fire-insurance com- 
panies whose yearly premium receipts amount to 
a million sterling. The old Alliance (fire and life) 
has a paid-up capital of twenty-five million dollars, 
— that grand old Hebrew, the late Sir Moses 
Montefiore, was its president ; and Rothschilds, 
Cavendishes and Grosvenors are on its board. 
This company has been running since 1824. The 
London Assurance Corporation, with funds in hand 
to the amount of sixteen million dollars, was organ- 
ized in 1720. The Westminster Fire-insurance 
Company in 171 7. Many of the London insur- 
ance companies occupy the finest buildings on the 
finest business sites in the city. The first insur- 
ance company set up in Great Britain was organ- 
ized in 1696, and now exists under the name of the 
Hand in Hand Insurance Company. The pres- 
ent reach of the business of the London fire- 
insurance companies is immense. Not long ago 
their returns showed, that, in London alone, the 
total value of property covered by them amounted 
to ^488,500,000. 



INSURANCE. 



259 



Notwithstanding the age, magnitude, and far- 
reaching character of the English fire-insurance 
business, it is claimed by those English writers 
upon the fire-insurance interest, who have made it 
a matter of the most careful study, that it is not 
always conducted upon a system that is satisfac- 
tory. Competition for business has taken on such 
an active character, that the various leading com- 
panies indulge in the most indiscreet cutting of 
rates, both at home and abroad. Shrewd and 
heavy applicants for insurance have only to prac- 
tise a little sharpness in the way of playing off 
one company against another, in order to get what 
they want at really less than cost. 

The endless variety of London's insurance 
schemes interested me very much. Into whatever 
business there enter elements of chance, danger, 
or uncertainty, insurance of some sort or other 
stretches its hand. As extreme illustrations of 
this point, I recall the fact of the existence in 
London of a rent-insurance company, — a company 
which, for premiums paid, guarantees the payment 
of rents due, and incidentally manages estates 
large and small, and superintends the erection of 
buildings ; and of an insurance company which 
insures transmission of articles by the general 
post-office parcel posts, since the post-office dis- 
claims all responsibility for the custody of their 
travelling parcels. 



260 GAS-COMPANIES. 

I was, of course, interested in the workings of 
the Bankers' Trust and Guarantee Fund. One 
section includes English banks ; the other, foreign 
banks. 

Fidelity insurance is, in London, the general 
bond-giver for officers holding places of trust in 
banks. In London the fidelity of bank clerks and 
bank managers is never insured beyond five thou- 
sand pounds each, and only in the sum of two 
thousand pounds unless in exceptional cases. 

London gas-companies are immense corpora- 
tions. In wandering about the city, I saw many 
of their enormous works, whose tall chimneys and 
vast piles of buildings of stone and brick, about 
which would be piled mountains of coke, formed 
marked features in the scenery of the great capital. 
While in the great coal-producing regions of Lan- 
cashire, where the bulk of the coking coals used 
for gas-making purposes in England are produced, 
I had occasion to hear much about the terrible 
dangers of coal-mining, arising from the liability 
to explosions of fire-damps and foul-damps, — 
those destructive gases evolved by the coal-beds. 
In London, a city whose custom is to turn night, 
to a very great extent, into day, I could hardly fail 
to remember that the ability of the city to light 
up o' nights in this brilliant manner came from 
the discovery that the coal-gas, which drove out 



GAS-COMPANIES. 26 1 

the miners, could be utilized above ground as an 
illuminator. In the hundred years that elapsed 
between 1650 and 1750, the attention of leading 
men of science in England was repeatedly called 
to the possibility of piping and using the inflam- 
mable gases that were blazing at the mouths of 
the exploded mines; but it was not till 1792 that 
gas-lights came into full existence. To-day, Lon- 
don has ten great gas-companies, with an aggregate 
capital of $50,000,000; and in all England, out- 
side of London, there are over five hundred gas- 
companies. The " London Gas-Light and Coke 
Company " is the largest gas-company in the 
world. Its receipts last year were .£2,663,508. 
The average London rate for gas is three shillings 
per one thousand cubic feet. The financial posi- 
tion of all the companies is strong, the lowest 
dividends paid on the ordinary stock being ten 
per cent, the London Gas-Light and Coke Com- 
pany being the only one of the gas-companies 
whose dividends are limited. 

In all the hotels in rural England, and in many 
of those in the cities, candles were served for bed- 
lights ; and I was often told by hotel-keepers that 
none of their English customers would tolerate for 
a night in their sleeping chambers the gas-lights so 
common in all our public houses. They deemed 
them unhealthy, and could not for a moment think 
of sleeping in the same room with gas-pipes. 



262 TELEGRAPHY IN ENGLAND. 

Many of the baronial halls are lighted by elec- 
tricity. Hatfield House, the home of Lord Salis- 
bury, I found well equipped with the electric light. 
Still, the universal cheapness of gas in England 
leads to" an enormous consumption of it. Many 
of the English cities manufacture their own gas. 
Manchester is among the number, and I found 
that city charging its consumers two shillings 
eightpence per one thousand feet, and making out 
of the business twenty-five thousand pounds per 
annum, and free light for its own streets. Liver- 
pool charges its consumers two shillings tenpence 
per one thousand feet. London, not having what 
is termed a municipality, is debarred from the 
advantage of running its own gas-works. 

The telegraphic wires of England, now in the 
hands of the Government under the postal sys- 
tem, were over me or under me wherever I trav- 
elled in England. I seldom entered a village or 
hamlet where I did not find a postal wire ready 
to report me to my family at London at the rate 
of twenty words for a shilling ; and twenty words, 
to one who had long been accustomed to the habit 
of endeavoring to tell all his wire stories in ten 
words, seemed a luxury of language. 

I found the telegraphic accommodations every- 
where arranged upon a well-nigh perfect system, 
and the operators in charge patient, intelligent, 



TELEGRAPHY IN ENGLAND. 263 

and most courteous. There is a loud demand in 
England for what is there termed sixpenny teleg- 
raphy, — a reduction of the twenty words tariff 
from a shilling to a sixpence, — and this demand 
the Government will before long acquiesce in. 

This call for an inland rate of a sixpence has 
been before Parliament since 1868, and financial 
expediency has been the only cause of its having 
so far been received with deaf ears. The assump- 
tion by the Government of the wire net-work sad- 
dled it with a debt of ten millions sterling ; and 
it is only quite recently that the profits of its tele- 
graphic business have been sufficient to even pay 
the interest upon this telegraphic debt. But under 
the new regime the use of the wires has increased 
enormously. I found all classes using them with 
a frequency and commonness that surprised me. 

There are six thousand telegraph offices open in 
the United Kingdom. Previous to the adoption 
of the postal system, six million messages a year 
was the highest number reached ; last year thirty- 
one million were sent. I heard a new and appar- 
ently practical telegraphic idea suggested in Eng- 
land. It was that two rates should be established. 
The higher for prompt, rapid telegrams, which 
should have precedence ; the lower for the wired 
words that should travel less fast, — express light- 
ning, and lightning that travels slowly and stops 
at all way-stations. 



264 UNDERGROUND OR OVERHEAD? 

I asked an Englishman why telegraph and tele- 
phone poles seemed so few to me as I walked 
over England, or dashed through it on the rail- 
ways, and he replied that they were certainly 
thicker there than he had ever seen them in 
America ; but that they were always so neatly 
finished and well painted as not to obtrude them- 
selves at all on the traveller's sight ; and if they 
were seen by me, I had probably taken them for 
something else, all of which I now remember to 
have been true. Certainly in England it is not 
easy to get far away from telegraph-wires. 

There, as well as in America, strenuous exertions 
are being made by crowded towns to drive the 
wires into an underground position. But in this 
matter there seems to be a conflict of authorities. 
Citizens petition the post-office department to re- 
fuse to grant licenses for the erection of new wires, 
unless coupled with the condition that the wires be 
set underground. The postmaster-general replies 
that he has not authority to take this stand, but 
that the local powers, the vestries, etc., must regu- 
late this matter. These latter reply that they 
can do nothing, and so the work of darkening 
London's skies with a net-work of wires goes on 
unchecked. I have never anywhere seen such a 
vast number of wires over my head as I have seen 
in parts of London. In Leadenhall Street alone, a 
short street, fourteen hundred wires may be seen 



LONDON SOLDIER MESSENGERS. 265 

cutting the air above you. Nervous London peo- 
ple are getting so alarmed over the dangers from 
falling wires that they will not ride outside the 
omnibuses. 

* * 

The organization known as the London Corps 
of Commissionaires was the model from which our 
soldiers' messenger corps was organized, and it is 
in a most satisfactory position. It is doing a 
noble work, inasmuch as it serves the public well, 
and at the same time provides for the maintenance 
of a worthy set of men who have done the State 
military service without any appeal to the Govern- 
ment for assistance. I found these neatly uni- 
formed commissionaires standing at nearly every 
corner, in the most central districts of London, 
clad in tasteful half-military uniform, oftener than • 
not wearing upon their breast a variety of medals 
and decorations, testifying to the heroic service 
they had performed in almost every quarter of the 
globe around which the arms of the British have 
been carried, — standing there patiently, ready to 
serve as guides, or run of errands, on a most rea- 
sonable tariff of compensation, and also ready, and 
guaranteed by the organization which manages 
them, to perform in the most trustworthy manner 
duties of delicacy and responsibility. American 
travellers are, I observed, fond of employing these 
military messengers. 



266 FLOWERS IN ENGLAND. 

This corps was founded by Captain Walker of 
the Regular Army, and the Regular Army is pro- 
posing to raise a fund to present to the captain some 
testimonial in honor of his services in organizing 
the commissionaires, and to aid in the endowment 
of the corps. This movement finds favor among 
the rank and file of England's soldiery, because 
the plan of Capt. Walker helps recruiting greatly, 
since the broken-down and honorably discharged 
soldier has so often found remunerative occupation 
in the commissionaire corps. It is pleasant to 
record the fact that the demand in the streets of 
London for commissionaires far exceeds the sup- 
ply, so well have their honest and skilful services 
been appreciated. New branches of the corps are 
constantly being added. 

The flowers of England are of almost infinite 
variety and beauty. I was especially struck with 
the abundance and exquisite loveliness of the wild- 
flowers which abounded on every hand in the 
spring-time ; and I often visited the flower-markets 
of London, Liverpool, and other large English 
cities. The vast stores of flowers here on sale 
were in the hands of women dealers, as is also the 
case in the flower-markets of Paris ; and every 
variety of flower, from the most costly to the poor 
man's, — the wall-flower, — could be seen as one 
travelled, in early morning, up and down the lanes 



FLOWERS BY MAIL. 2<3j 

of these great flower-marts. On the open streets of 
London, I found the active retail trade in flowers 
in the hands of about as ragged, dirty and disa- 
greeable crowds of women as I have ever met in 
trade anywhere. There was something very in- 
congruous in this fact that the lovely flowers of 
the meadows, fields and gardens of England were 
in the dirty hands of a gang of flower women and 
girls who were ready to chaff each other in the 
most rude, and often indecent, manner, and ready, 
also, to abuse and cheat the traveller .who lingered 
among them in search of a supply of the treasures 
of joy and beauty in which they dealt. 

Vast quantities of flowers are constantly brought 
into England from the south of Europe, and sold 
in the flower-marts of London and other cities at 
prices which seem very low to an American. I 
have observed in "The Times," "Pall Mall Ga- 
zette," and other papers, advertisements which are 
a curious illustration of the status of the English 
flower supply. Flower growers in Italy, and other 
countries of the far south of Europe, advertise 
their readiness to send by mail, packed securely 
and " preservatively," rose-buds, tuberoses, pinks, 
etc., on receipt of the very low prices named, to 
any address in England. And the mails are often 
weighted with these sweet invoices passing in this 
rapid and convenient manner from sunny Italy to 
the less favored kingdoms of the far North. 



268 AN ENGLISH CUSTOM. 

The internationalism of business is vividly- 
shown by- the custom of the flower-dealers of Rus- 
sia, and other cold European lands, scouring the 
shores of the Mediterranean for flowers whenever 
great social events in those northern lands, like a 
coronation or a princely wedding, create an over- 
whelming demand for flowers. At such times 
great refrigerator cars whirl over the long routes 
of the rail their fragrant and lovely burden of the 
products of the vast flower-gardens of the South. 
The international flower trade of Europe is be- 
coming one of its most lively industries. There 
is one English flower custom which I observed 
with a deal of pleasure as I lingered among the 
busy merchants on change in the great cities of 
London and Liverpool, or sauntered through the 
streets and parks when business men were rest- 
ing from their daily routine of work, and walking 
for exercise and recreation as they are so much in 
the habit of doing in city and town, — and that 
was the custom of wearing something in the 
flower line in the way of a button-hole bouquet. 
Very staid, conservative men of business — men 
whose ships were on every sea, and whose tran- 
sactions on change were of magnificent propor- 
tions, merchant princes who were no longer in 
the primrose paths of life, but whose heads were 
silvered with advancing age — could be seen wear- 
ing button-hole bouquets of so huge a size as to 



THE PRIMROSE AND BEACONSFIELD. 269 

astonish and perhaps, at first, amuse an American 
not accustomed to see such profuse flo*ral adorn- 
ments of the masculine figure. But the custom 
in question is so general in England as to pass 
without observation. 

On the 19th of April, while walking in Hyde 
Park, London, I observed a very wide use of the 
primrose as an adornment. The beautiful Eng- 
lish girls, who galloped by me in Rotten Row 
upon their fine thorough-breds, their graceful 
forms elegantly clothed in glove-fitting riding- 
habits which displayed to the best advantage their 
fascinating proportions, wore upon their breasts 
large bunches of primroses ; and the " fair women 
and brave men " who rolled by me in their coaches 
also blossomed in the same style. Primroses were 
all about me, on foot as well as on wheels and in 
the saddle. 

This 19th of April is the anniversary of the 
death of Beaconsfield ; and the primrose, which 
had been his favorite flower, has been adopted as 
the badge of Toryism, and is held sacred to the 
memory of the great Conservative leader. On 
the first anniversary of Lord Beaconsfield's death, 
the wearing of this lovely pale yellow flower — the 
prima rosa of England is of this hue — was gen- 
erally held to be a demonstration of Conservative 
sympathy ; and so it continues to the present year, 
and is likely to live in future years. Grave objec- 



270 THE PRIMROSE AND BEACONSFIELD. 

tions to what some term a rather novel and theat- 
rical exhibition of hero worship are urged in some 
quarters ; and I have read the inevitable letter to 
"The London Times," signed by the remonstrants 
against the practice, wherein it is urged "that, if 
every good Conservative and Liberal is, in future, 
to wear or place on his table a visible token of the 
faith that is in him, a new element of friction and 
discomfort will be introduced into our daily life." 

But by a large class of living English men and 
women the memory of Beaconsfield is intensely 
idolized. Pilgrimages are made to the manor of 
Hughenden, where he lived and died, and flowers, 
especially primroses, are strewn upon his grave. 
Through the entire year his grave is kept covered 
with flowers. Some have asked what Disraeli him- 
self would have thought of such proceedings, since 
he was not given to the use of flowers in such 
connection, and would not permit a single flower 
to grow above the grave of his wife. Many ad- 
mirers of Beaconsfield journey to Hughenden in 
the season of primroses, for the sake of gathering 
them there, and carrying them away to treasure 
as mementos of their dead leader. These flowers 
are not, however, very abundant in the locality. 
But the speculative urchins about the place grub 
far and near for them ; and then, no matter where 
they have gathered them, offer them to visitors as 
having been gathered in Beaconfield's favorite 






THE CONSERVATIVE COLOR. 27 1 

paths, while the buyers seem to have faith in these 
statements. 

Said a huge flunkey to me in the lobby of the 
House of Commons, "Gladstone is no sort of a 
man for the times. Lord Beaconsfield was the 
chap. He was a hornament to the nation." It is 
a curious fact that the whole army of hangers-on 
to Parliament, of the doorkeeper and general 
flunkey class, seem to be proud of their Toryism. 

But this tendency towards an idolization of Dis- 
raeli is widespread in aristocratic England; and 
there is a secret political society, known as the 
Primrose League, the members of which have 
bound themselves to be faithful to the memory of 
Disraeli, and, in political matters, to be ruled by 
his precepts. 

Yellow is now the Conservative color ; and, at 
grand rallies of that party, ladies and gentlemen 
are quite apt to display not only primroses and 
yellow favors, but the gorgeous sunflower. This 
last floral ornament seems somewhat out of place 
when used as a button-hole bouquet by an English 
Tory, since, unlike the primrose, which is really a 
typical British flower, it is a native American, 
pure and simple, though it has long been culti- 
vated in Europe, where, particularly in southern 
Europe, it grows most luxuriantly, and is used for 
r uel, as food for cattle and poultry, for oil-making, 
md even for making bread, as it was once used by 
,:he American Indians. 



272 PRIMROSES. 

But certainly the soft, delicate, solitary flowered, 
perennial primrose — that sweet ornament of the 
groves and meadows of England, and which is a 
native of Europe — seems quite in place when 
worn upon the breast of a beautiful English girl. 
The primroses I found in English gardens, and 
growing wild in English fields and meadows. I 
doubt not their sweetness and beauty have led to 
their cultivation from the very beginning of Eng- 
lish floriculture. They are one of the earliest 
flowers of an English spring, and their name was 
given them because of their early coming. 
Wherever I wandered in England in April I found 
them growing in abundance, and I have been told 
they are to be found in abundance in the moun- 
tainous regions of the far north of the kingdom. 

An English loaf of bread is close-grained, solid, 
but sweet, and of a very nourishing character. In 
England wheat-loaves are hardly deemed fit for 
table till they are at least a day old. In my visits 
to English bakeries, I was struck by the prevailing 
neatness of the establishments, though I found 
there was an outcry going on about the filthy con- 
dition of some of the bakeries in the great cities. 
I often tried to find out from English bread-makers 
why their wheat-bread was entirely unlike ours, 
and I finally came to the conclusion that it arose 
mainly from the character of the yeast they used, 



WHEA T-BREAD. 273 

and from the thorough kneading. Bread from 
the public bakeries is almost universally used in 
cities and populous towns, and is more and more 
generally used in the rural districts. One of the 
most frequent sights I met with, on quiet back 
country roads, was that of the bread man, in his 
open gig, moving rapidly from one laborer's cottage 
to another. 

In many of the smaller towns and villages some 
of the artisans and agricultural laborers are in the 
habit of taking their provisions to the public 
bakery to be cooked. This is a very ancient cus- 
tom. The housewife mixes her bread, and then 
takes it in a cloth to the bakery, when she kneads 
and shapes it, and sees it placed in the hot oven. 
For a penny she gets, said a Bedford man to me, 
a half a peck — six or seven pounds — of bread 
well baked. The Sunday dinner, which is made 
a deal of in England, and which usually consists 
of a piece of meat resting on or in a pudding 
made of a batter formed of flour, eggs and milk, 
is apt to be taken to the baker on the way to 
church, and called for on the return. And the 
charge for this baking is only a penny. It must 
be remembered that I am here writing only of 
the home customs of the humbler classes. 

Wheat -bread is the main staff of life with Eng- 
land's laborers. Butter is eaten with it either 
very sparingly or not at all ; but beer must, if pos- 



2 74 WHEA T-BREAD. 

sible, always be at hand to wash it down, and by 
many is deemed a greater necessity than the loaf. 
An English loaf of wheat-bread is something that 
makes an impression upon the American traveller 
in England. In fact, it is capable of making an 
impression upon anybody or any thing, for I found 
the standard article in this line to be solid enough 
to bombard a city. Yet I am ready to confess 
that I am very fond of the English loaf of wheat- 
bread, and to testify that I never fell in with an 
American consumer of the article who was not a 
liker of it. 

To-day, in England, public bakeries do almost 
all the bread-baking, and the product they turn out 
is not in the least like our baker's bread, for it is 
close-grained, solid, and sweet with the flavor of 
the wheat of which it is made. All Englishmen 
say English wheat-flour is better than the Ameri- 
can. I am not expert enough in the premises to 
pronounce upon the correctness of their judg- 
ment. But this I do know, that I found every- 
where in England the use of American flour the 
rule rather than the exception, and all were willing 
to concede its excellence, claiming, at the same 
time, that it is now much better than it was for- 
merly, and saying that it once had the taste of 
onions, from the fact that the Americans then 
took no pains to rid their wheat of charlock seed. 



CO-OPERA TION. 2?$ 

Co-operation is a great success in England. The 
leaders in this business were the "pioneers" of 
Rochdale, who were working people. To-day the 
Army and Navy Co-operative stores in Victoria 
Street, London, constitute one of the most inter- 
esting lions in the city, and I was deeply interested 
by the inspection I made of them. After passing 
through all the departments of this immense es- 
tablishment, I came to the conclusion that they 
had there on sale every thing a man could possibly 
need in running a complete family establishment. 
And co-operation, which began among the humble 
laborers of Rochdale, has culminated in the case 
of these co-operative society stores in an estab- 
lishment patronized by the wealthy and fashion- 
able. 

The streets in the vicinity of these shops were 
filled with the waiting equipages of the nobility 
and gentry who were inside buying. On benches 
at the entrances were long lines of flunkies, wait- 
ing for the return of their masters and mistresses ; 
while inside, around the thronged counters, was 
to be found a crowd made up of lords and ladies, 
eminent soldiers, and, in fact, a large representa- 
tion of what London terms its best society. 

The Co-operative Wholesale Society of the 
United Kingdom has six hundred and thirty-nine 
stores, situated in all parts of the country, whose 
sales foot up five million dollars a quarter. There 



276 RETAIL SHOPS. 

are, in England, seven hundred and eighty-two 
retail co-operative societies, whose yearly sales are 
immense. But the most interesting co-operative 
movement that I have observed in England is 
one that has been made by the junior clerks of 
London, the shop-keepers' assistants, as they are 
there termed. The custom of the great establish- 
ments of providing residence accommodations for 
all their employes which, down to a late date, was 
almost universal, is rapidly going out of date. 
And now the hard-worked and lightly-paid clerks 
of London are forming a mutual society for pro- 
viding themselves with food, lodgings, clothing, 
and, in fact, all the necessaries of their lives. 

* 
The retail stores of London, on what one would 
term the good streets, I found neat and attractive 
in their exterior, filled with the choicest and most 
substantial goods, and attended by intelligent and 
courteous clerks. All this as a general rule ; but 
in London, as everywhere else, all rules have their 
exceptions. One noticeable feature of London 
stores, particularly those devoted to the sale of 
gentlemen's furnishing goods and small wares, 
is the custom of keeping a large proportion of 
the goods compactly done up in wrappers and 
strings, and packed away on shelves and in drawers. 
The amount of unpacking and packing the polite 
shop-keeper would sometimes have to go through 



SHOP-CLERKS' HOLIDAYS. 2J7 

with in order to get at the right sized gloves or 
hose for me when shopping would make me feel 
that I was putting him to a deal of trouble, though 
he would not appear to consider it in that light. 

London shop-keepers and London clerks look 
upon their Christmas and other stated holidays as 
something very sacred, and not to be encroached 
upon except in cases of extreme necessity. Thus, 
where a well-known large retail mourning house 
advertised that a few clerks would be in attend- 
ance on Christmas Day to meet the necessities of 
customers who had to make sudden preparations 
for funerals, they also advertised, in concession 
to the prevailing sentiment, that such a holiday 
should be duly regarded ; that the clerks in special 
attendance, as mentioned, would have given them, 
subsequently, any day they might select as a com- 
pensation for the one taken from them to accom- 
modate patrons. 

* 
The Bluecoat Boys of Christ's Hospital, Lon- 
don, who number about seven hundred and fifty, 
and who seemed to me to be running about the 
streets in all parts of the city, at all times of the 
day, bareheaded, are certainly a personal novelty, 
particularly in the eyes of Americans. Like the 
Shakers of the United States, they are dressed 
in a quaint costume, belonging to ancient days, 
which the rules of their order do not allow them 



278 BLUECOAT BOYS. 

to change. In the case of these little boys of the 
bare poll and picturesque long, blue frock, down 
would go their Christ's Hospital, which gives 
them food, shelter and education, if their unique 
spencers were shortened, or the colors of their 
knee-breeches changed one iota ; for the large 
fund of their foundation rests upon an ancient 
will, the breaking of which would relegate the 
Bluecoat Boys to poverty. There are many curi- 
ous customs connected with this venerable charity, 
whose home is right in the heart of London, — a 
home which I explored and examined with a deal 
of interest. One of these is connected with East- 
er, at which season the boys all go in procession 
to the Mansion House of the Lord Mayor of Lon- 
don. As the boys pass the Lord Mayor, each re- 
ceives a gift in new coin fresh from the mint, 
the thirteen Grecians receiving a guinea each ; 
eleven junior Grecians, half a guinea; forty-two 
monitors, half a crown ; and six hundred and sev- 
enty-five of the rank and file of the school, a shil- 
ling each. As they leave, they are given each a 
couple of plum-buns, and a glass of wine or lemon- 
ade. After the ceremony, the Lord Mayor and 
sheriffs go in state to Christ Church, Newgate 
Street, where the spital sermon is preached by 
the Bishop of Rochester. 

The largest school in the world is the Jews' Free 



THE JEWS' FREE SCHOOL. 279 

School of London, an institution which has been 
helped forward by such eminent Hebrews as the 
Rothschilds and the Montefiores, and which is to- 
day in a most flourishing condition. Here may 
be seen children of all nations, as far as extraction 
is concerned ; and children, too, speaking nearly 
all languages, but who are of one blood and race. 
There are thirty-two hundred children on the 
register of this great school, and the average at- 
tendance is thirty-one hundred. 

I have often heard it said that there are more 
Jews in London than in Jerusalem. However 
this may be, statistics clearly show, that, out of 
the five millions of Jews assigned to the entire 
world, at least three and one-half millions are to- 
day in Europe. A Jew is a leading director in 
the Bank of England, into which position he was 
finally lifted after a financial and social battle 
which has become historical, and everywhere in 
London one finds evidences of the wealth and 
power of a race which, centuries ago, was driven 
from England by an infuriated rabble, leaving be- 
hind, in the hands of the king, "all their property, 
debts, obligations and mortgages." 

To-day, in England, the Jews are foremost in 
matters of education ; and the average attendance 
at their schools is larger than that of any other 
class. And it has lately been stated that there 
are two classes in Great Britain who have never 



28o LONDON ASHES. 

asked that the standard of education be lowered, 
— the Scotsman and the Hebrew. Old Hebrew 
writers said the world could only be saved by the 
breath of school-children, and uttered the maxim, 
" First build schools, then the temple, then the 
synagogues." 

* 
The economical method by which the ashes and 

soot are collected and disposed of in London is 
worthy of notice. The ashes are, of course, soft- 
coal ashes, as soft coal is the fuel of London, 
and the vast quantity of London soot comes from 
chimneys swept about once a month to clear 
them from the accumulations caused by these 
soft-coal fires. The dust-men of London traverse 
the streets of that city, collecting in their wagons 
all the ashes made. Their collections are taken 
to a large city yard, where they are sifted by 
city men, who, by the sifting, separate from the 
ashes every particle of unconsumed coal, and all 
material that has found its way into the dust- 
barrel which has any possible junk value. The 
cinders saved accumulate in vast piles, and are- 
sold to the poor at low rates for fuel, and the old 
junk is disposed of by the city in the most profita- 
ble manner. 

The city of London allows nothing to be wasted. 
The coal-ashes thus gleaned are used for filling 
purposes. But the uses of soot were novel to me. 



PREDIAL, MIXED, AND PERSONAL. 28 1 

Not only in London, but all over the United 
Kingdom, all the soot gathered from the chimneys 
and flues is carefully saved, put into bags holding 
about a couple of bushels, and sold to the farmers 
and gardeners, who prize it very highly as a fer- 
tilizer. In wandering about the farming districts 
of Great Britain, I often saw wide fields of grass- 
lands upon which the very black bags containing 
soot had been placed in regular order all over the 
land preparatory to being scattered broadcast over 
the fields, and, at first, I thought these black ob- 
jects were sheep or dogs lying upon the grass. 
Many of the farmers of England were loud in 
their praises of the value of soot as a fertilizer. 

* 

PREDIAL, MIXED, AND PERSONAL. 

This mysterious combination of words applies 
to various classes of church-tithes which still 
have an existence in England. To attempt to 
describe the precise characteristics of these vari- 
ous tithes would be going beyond the province of 
these practical notes. An accurate acquaintance 
with the complicated tithe-system of England 
would betoken a liberal legal education, for this 
system is the result of a series of statutes extend- 
ing over a very long period. 

It may, in a word, be said that the tithe situa- 
tion in England to-day may be described as a 



282 WORKINGS OF THE TITHE SYSTEM. 

substitution of a money-rent charge, varying on 
a scale regulated by the average price of corn for 
seven years, for all the other forms of payment 
that have heretofore existed. Those of my read- 
ers who may have had an idea that tithes no 
longer really oppressed the people of England 
will read with interest and surprise the following 
incident, — an incident of English church-life of 
to-day : — 

He lived in Bleak House, Langley. He had 
refused to pay .£29 8s 8d due as " extraordinary " 
tithes upon fruit and hops. The Rev. W. B. 
Pusey had levied upon his two cows ; and Mr. 
Anscombe, the auctioneer, in the midst of a great 
crowd, among which were many members of the 
Anti-Extraordinary Tithe Movement, mounted a 
block in the Bleak House farm-yard, and began to 
sell the two church-captured cows. The first bid 
was five pounds ; and, in the midst of a deal of 
excitement and threats of boycotting the auc- 
tioneer, this bid was run up to thirty-eight pounds, 
the amount of the tithe claim and expenses ; and 
so the other cow was released from the clutches 
of the Established Church. After the sale, an 
indignation meeting was held, at which the tithe 
system and the cow sale were vigorously de- 
nounced. But the cow had, nevertheless, been 
sold and driven off, and rector Pusey paid. 



FOX-HUNTING. 283 

Many Englishmen think they see signs of the 
decline of fox-hunting, while others deny that it is 
decaying. Some famous keepers of hounds have, 
within a year or two, given up their packs, — Lord 
Radnor and Mr. Combe, for instance, — and there 
are certainly indications that fox-hunting is upon 
the wane in some districts. There are a few easily 
understood reasons for the opposition which exists 
to hunting. The farmers of England are low- 
spirited and cross over the agricultural prospects. 
They find but little money in wheat-growing, and 
their impatience over the rough fox-hunting riding 
over their growing corn is upon the increase. 

It was prophesied in the early days of railroads 
that they would destroy fox-hunting. But the 
first result of their establishment was an increase 
of the sport, for the rail gave a chance for quick 
rallies from distant points at hunting centres. 
Now the opportunities the trains give for these 
gatherings is developing renewed opposition from 
the farmers, for in the trains comes a motley 
crowd that joins in the chase, many of whom pay 
nothing to the subscription fund which goes to 
compensate the farmers for crop-hurting damages. 
Another reason for the growing unpopularity of 
fox-hunting in some farming localities comes from 
the fact that hunting areas have become very 
much circumscribed, thereby resulting in more 
frequent ridings over those that remain. A lim- 



284 LONDON'S POOR CHILDREN. 

ited acreage for the sport now means a more fre- 
quent and more inconvenient hunting use of it. 
The one great argument in favor of fox-hunting 
that is most frequently urged in the rural districts 
is, that it keeps the gentlemen on their estates, 
and makes things lively there, and trade good 
round about them at a season when these estates 
would be otherwise abandoned. 

* 
London streets seemed full of poor children. 

Ragged and destitute little boys and girls, present- 
ing a more woe-begone appearance than any chil- 
dren I had ever before seen, swarmed about me 
wherever I wandered about the streets of mighty 
London. Often children of the most tender age 
were dragged before the courts on charges of 
crimes indicating a maturity of wickedness that 
was absolutely appalling. They have a law in 
England permitting these youthful criminals to be 
peremptorily punished with the birch, and dis- 
missed, instead of sentencing them to confinement, 
where the companionship of more hardened crimi- 
nals would complete their ruin. But London is 
full of individuals and organizations laboring to 
rescue and aid the poor juvenile delinquents. The 
ragged-schools of the city are one of its most 
useful institutions. 

We have, in our great cities, summer excursions 
for poor children. This is a good English notion 



LONDON'S POOR CHILDREN 285 

which we have closely copied. In London these 
excursions are termed garden-parties for the poor 
children. In a term of eight years one hundred 
and fifty-two thousand of the ragged little ones 
of London have been sent on these excursions, 
and the expenses per head have only been about 
a half-penny. They have, in London, a wonder- 
fully economical system of furnishing entertain- 
ments for the poor. 

* 

I have often heard it argued that the children in 
the poor localities in large cities got along just as 
well, as far as health was concerned, and grew up 
as tough and strong, as the children of the better 
classes. Statistics upset such a theory as this. 
In parts of Whitechapel, London, which have a 
birth rate of forty per thousand, the death rate is 
twenty-six per thousand against twelve per thou- 
sand in Hampstead. Paris, Lyons and Marseilles 
furnish similar distressing figures. Liverpool is 
undoubtedly worse than London in this regard. 

I have before me a statement made by the Liv- 
erpool Insanitary Property Committee, which is to 
the effect that there are in that city fifteen thou- 
sand houses unfit to be inhabited by human beings, 
which dwellings are now the only homes of a 
population of sixty thousand people. My own 
personal explorations of Liverpool have fully pre- 
pared me to accept this statement. Liverpool 



286 



RENT AND WAGES TABLE. 



philanthropists are convinced that the cottage 
system must there be abandoned, since its popula- 
tion is so rapidly increasing, and its territory is so 
limited, and that the flat system must be univer- 
sally adopted. I saw, in Liverpool, blocks of flats 
recently erected for the laboring classes which 
were real curiosities on account of their great 
ground extent and immense height. Liverpool 
says it must have such homes furnished at a cost 
of a shilling per week for each room. 

Here is a reliable table relative to rents, wages, 
etc., of the class of families we are writing about. 
It will be seen that about a quarter of the wages 
go for rent. The district is Finsbury, London : — 



Occupation. 



Moulder . . 

Porter . . 

Laborer . . 

Printer . . 
Bootmender 

Painter . . 

Laborer . . 

Riveter . . 



No. of 


No. of 


Wages 


rooms 


child'n 


when fully 


occu- 
Tied. 

I 


m 
family. 


employed. 


4 


iSs od 


I 


2 


i8s od 


I 


s 


20S od 


I 


o 


25s od 


I 


7 


17s 6d 


2 


S 


20s od 


2 


6 


20s od 


I 


6 


20s od 


1 


6 


? 



Rent. 



4s 6d 
5s 6d 
3s 6d 
6s od 
6s od 
6s 6d 
5s 6d 
4s 6d 
2s 9d 



On the Thames, near London, I have seen an 
institution which might, I think, be copied on our 
waters. I refer to the floating house-boat. Some 
of these homes upon the water are fitted up quite 



FLOATING FLATS. 287 

finely, and contain, in some instances, living and 
sleeping accommodations for a dozen persons. 
Lines of them may be seen in some places on the 
river, forming regular marine villages. Many of 
the river abutters look upon these house-boats as 
perfect nuisances, since their house-keeping ma- 
chinery, and its results, pollute the river, and their 
tenants rob the shores of that seclusion of which 
Englishmen are so fond. Proprietors of riparian 
Thames rights, under a so far unsettled claim that 
they own the bed of the river half-way across, and 
many other rights in the river, such as control of 
the fishing, and the right to cut the valuable crops 
of reeds in the river, have made the most strenu- 
ous exertions to clear the stream of these house- 
boats ; but, so far, the boats have had it pretty 
much their own way, and are steadily increasing 
in number and size. Although these boats are 
mainly built to sleep quietly at moorings, they 
usually have some go in them. From a house-boat 
that has floated up and down the Thames, a dis- 
tinguished artist has taken quite a gallery of fine 
sketches ; and I have seen one of the Thames 
house-boats advertised for sale with the statement 
that it had crossed the Channel. 

* 
I don't know how many times I visited St. 
Paul's, or how many hours I may have spent in its 
ancient two-acre church-yard, standing so near a 



288 ST. PAUVS CATHEDRAL. 

thoroughfare thronged by a host of the busiest 
shops of London ; but this I do know, the Ameri- 
can in London finds this stately cathedral one of 
the most interesting sights in London, and does 
not feel that he has " done " the city unless he 
has attended church-service there on at least one 
Sunday. The congregation he there meets is as 
remarkable as is the cathedral ; for St. Paul's has 
no parochial charge, and the immense throng of 
worshippers he there finds around him, listening 
to the most eminent of England's preachers, are 
gathered from every corner of the civilized globe. 

And now just a few words about St. Paul's 
methods of worship and varied ministrations. 

In the first place, this magnificent old cathedral 
is open every day in the week for religious ser- 
vices. And every day in the week there are sev- 
eral different services. To detail just what and 
when these are would be tedious ; but I must 
mention that it holds every morning a celebration 
of the Holy Communion, a plain service at 8 a.m., 
a short daily service at about I p.m., and many 
evening services. At St. Paul's, as in all the 
great English cathedrals, a very strong point is 
made of its music, and very strong and sweet 
music it has, as I can testify. Doctors of music of 
high degree preside over the grand organs of the 
cathedrals. Some of these are paid large sums 
for their services. I happened to notice that the 



SERVICES AT ST. PAUL'S 289 

accomplished organist at York Minster was given 
a salary of four thousand dollars a year, a large 
wage in England. But in these cathedrals almost 
ail their workers are entitled to a pension at a cer- 
tain age, and present incumbents are often heavily 
taxed to support the pension fund. In our home 
churches fault is often found because singers are 
neither devotional in their manners, their spirit, 
or in their outside surroundings or antecedents. 

At St. Paul's, the eighteen men who worship 
with song, and who form a portion of its great choir, 
are all communicants of the church. They hold 
their situations for life, being entitled to a pension 
at sixty. The thirty or forty boy choristers of St. 
Paul's are schooled, boarded, clothed and generally 
cared for by the cathedral. So it seems that the 
pure and soul-stirring music of this great spiritual 
centre comes from voices that are really in spiritual 
harmony with the Church of England. 

But, after all, the outside work of St. Paul's is 
of the most interesting character. It has lectures 
upon literary, social and scientific subjects, classes 
for the pursuits of various studies, including the 
study of Shakespeare, associations for recreation, 
soirees, and societies for mutual improvement. 
It has also an ecclesiological club, one of whose 
features is a weekly (Saturday) excursion to in- 
teresting churches in and about London, for the 
purpose of studying their construction ; and these 



29O ST. PAUL'S OUTSIDE WORK. 

parties, which are generally put in charge of some 
distinguished architect, afford a deal of instruction 
and pleasant recreation. The architects deliver 
regular lectures to the parties, as they explore the 
old churches, having about them, as they walk 
and talk, illustrations, in wood, stone and brick, of 
the points upon which they are dwelling. 

I have spoken of its cosmopolitan Sunday con- 
gregation. But, though I found it thronged well- 
nigh to suffocation with an audience largely made 
up of strangers in London, there was evidently 
present quite a sprinkling of Londoners. These 
admire its service, and are justifiably proud of the 
general attractions of their great cathedral. 

Though I have, in England, enjoyed the worship 
of the Established Church, I cannot help noting 
here that I found the sermons generally dull and 
unsatisfactory. The preaching seemed highly 
evangelical, but it was usually upon texts and 
topics not calculated to touch the human heart. 

It was in serious earnest not long ago suggested 
by an English churchman that the sermon be 
done away with. In a press discussion that fol- 
lowed this recommendation, a gentleman wrote to 
a leading London paper that he favored this aboli- 
tion, for he had never heard any sermons in his 
church that interested him ; and that, during a 
long course of sermon-hearing, he could remem- 
ber hearing no topics of the class which he longed 



SERMON TOPICS. 29 1 

for : those of a stirring nature, and sure to com- 
mand the attention of men, such as life and death, 
and all the tender relations of human beings to 
one another, — " noble, tender, pathetic, solemn, 
uplifting to noble endeavor, or rebuking for short- 
comings." During a long course of sermons, he 
could solemnly declare he could recollect no such 
choice of topics as these, but he could recall a few- 
subjects which were the only ones that had fixed 
themselves upon his memory, and these were, — 

1. The character of Saul. 

2. The proper limits of veneration to the Vir- 
gin Mary. 

3. The offence of Simon Magnus. 

4. The necessity of attending church more than 
once on Sunday. 

We have been hearing, in these modern days, a 
deal about the bitter outcry of the poor of Lon- 
don, who can find no homes in London for them- 
selves. I should term this wail, which I have 
just quoted, an outcry over a spiritual destitution 
there existing on account of the death in life in 
the sermons of her Established Church. But if 
the sermons are poor, they are very short, and 
occupy a minor position in the grand service of 
English cathedral worship. And nowhere in Eng- 
land did I find this worship more impressive than 
in venerable St. Paul's. 



2Q2 CURIOUS OLD CUSTOMS AND LAWS. 

I found many curious old customs and laws, 
with which English story and history had made 
me familiar, still in working order in old England. 
My morning " London Times," in its voluminous 
court reports, would, for instance, have all the de- 
tails of a lawsuit which had resulted in the im- 
prisonment of a young captain in the army for 
marrying, without consent of the chancery court, 
a ward in chancery. Nothing whatever was ad- 
duced against the character of the soldier. His 
only crime was that of successfully making love to, 
and finally capturing, the fair ward, which crime 
the judge pronounced one of the most flagrant 
character ; for the young man had not, in advance, 
obtained the < onsent of the court. In this par- 
ticular case which came under my observation, the 
offender, who had been languishing in prison for 
some time, petitioned for release, on the ground 
that his health was giving way under the confine- 
ment. But release was peremptorily refused. He 
had sinned greatly, and in prison he must remain. 

These young women who are thus hedged about 
by the court are minors, with property and with- 
out natural guardians. The chancery appoints 
guardians, whom it supervises. And even the 
guardians cannot issue a permit to the ward to 
many without first obtaining consent of the chan- 
cery court. 

When a forbidden alliance has taken place, the 



THE WHITE GLOVE, 293 

. husband in prison for contempt of court is quite 
sure to be kept there till he consents to such a 
settlement of the property of the ward as the 
court orders, which settlement is always to the 
effect that the husband shall never have any in- 
terest in the property of his wife. In the particu- 
lar case in question, the terrible offender had the 
misfortune to be forty years old, and not rich, 
while the ward was twenty, with one thousand 
pounds a year. 

Another of the English institutions we read of, 
and which is still existing, is the custom, at any 
session held by a judge of the superior court, to 
present a pair of white gloves to the judge if the 
session turns out to be what is termed a maiden 
assize; that is, a session of the court to which no 
criminal business presents itself. I noted that 
several of these opportunities for going through 
the very old form of the white-glove donation 
came up within a few months, as, in the discharge 
of their duties, the judges moved around the coun- 
try. In the conduct of court business, a deal of 
what may be termed old-fashioned pomp and cere- 
mony is still gone through with in England. Take, 
for illustration, a glance at the "show" witnessed 
at an opening of the Worcestershire winter as- 
sizes, for venerable Worcestershire clings fondly 
to all her old forms and ceremonies. His Lord- 
ship Baron Huddlestone, who is to sit at this 



294 THE QUEEN'S REMEMBRANCER. 

assize, is met at the station by high sheriff, under 
sheriff, sheriff's chaplain, and a large detachment 
of the county police. This procession escorts the 
judge to the shire hall, where he is presented with 
a large bouquet. On Sunday the judge is driven 
to the great cathedral in the splendidly appointed 
carriage of the high sheriff, under escort of a 
crowd of officials, made up of the city government, 
— sheriffs, chaplains and constables ; and in the 
old cathedral a sermon is preached by the high 
sheriff's chaplain specially appropriate to the occa- 
sion. In fact, a court -opening in old Worcester is 
a very imposing and interesting affair. 

A quaint old performance, which is every year 
gone through with in London, is a vivid reminder 
of the curious tenure upon which some English 
lands are held. On a certain fixed day the solici- 
tor and high sheriff of London, with other repre- 
sentatives of the corporation, present themselves 
before the Queen's Remembrancer, an officer of 
the Government whose duty it is to look after the 
papers, deeds, etc., of the sovereign, at which time 
two proclamations are made. 

" Tenants and occupiers of a piece of waste 
ground called the Moors in the County Salop 
come forth and do your service " is the first proc- 
lamation made on behalf of the Queen. The Lon- 
don solicitor then steps forward and cuts one 
fagot with a hatchet and another with a bill-hook. 






THE QUEEN'S REMEMBRANCER. 295 

Then the Queen's Remembrancer proclaims, 
"Tenants and occupiers of a certain tenement 
called the Forge in the parish of St. Clement 
Danes, in the county of Middlesex, come forth to 
do your service." Then the London represen- 
tatives count out and pass over six horseshoes 
and 10 nails, the Queen's Remembrancer sayino-, 
"Good number." Thus is discharged an ancient 
feu which was payable in work, and the title to I 
know not how many millions sterling worth of 
land in London " nailed." 

The lawsuits of the English courts of to-day are 
constantly settling questions which intertwine 
with times antecedent to the settlement of New 
England. A whale stranded upon the shores of an 
old baronial estate was captured by some fisher- 
men. Their claim to it was disputed by the landed 
: proprietor ; and, on his proving that as far back 
I as 1592 the lord of the manor had held on to all 
whales on his shore, the courts sustained the pro- 
; prietor and ousted the fishermen. An easement 
I upon an estate in the shape of the right of the 
poor people to take stones from it was reaffirmed, 
though said easement bore the date of the six- 
teenth century. 






There are no betterment laws in England, nor, 
in fact, in Europe. The idea of assessing estates 
for improvements made in their vicinity, which 



296 NO BETTERMENT LAWS IN ENGLAND. 

have increased the value of those estates, is a 
genuine American notion ; and the use of the 
word in the sense I have just named was first 
introduced into Vermont statutes, and then copied 
by New Hampshire, from which State it was im- 
ported into Massachusetts, where it has had an 
active career. In many parts of London open 
spaces for recreation have been recently set apart 
at great expense, yet the city has never levied a 
dollar of the costs of these parks upon adjoining 
estates, though in many cases their value has been 
enormously enhanced by the public improvements. 
And in many instances the authorities have en- 
tirely renovated whole neighborhoods occupied by 
dwellings of the poorest classes, thereby largely 
increasing the value of adjoining estates, and yet 
have overlooked the American betterment idea. 
But, not long since, a member of Parliament, Mr. 
Cohen, while speaking upon the necessity of Lon- 
don's doing more to improve the dwellings of the 
poor, endeavored to convince his listeners that the 
United States plan of assessing for neighborhood 
improvements ought to be introduced into Eng- 
land. 

There is probably no country in the world 
where the government and the laws watch more 
closely over the individual rights of the people 
than in England. Our own country might copy, 



GUARDIANS OF THE PEOPLE. 297 

with signal advantage, many of the laws which 
have been enacted in England for the protection 
of its citizens from the encroachments of those 
whose greed would lead them to a disregard of 
the health and felicity of others. Dr. Carpenter, 
not long ago, delivered an address entitled, " Hap- 
piness through Sanitation." England seems de- 
termined, as a general thing, that its people shall 
not be subject to what may be termed the assaults 
of wilful insanitation. 

A single illustration must serve to point this 
paragraph. About seven miles from Liverpool is 
a great paper manufactory, and near it a large 
garden belonging to a florist and nurseryman. 
The man of plants and flowers suddenly found 
them withering under what he declared were the 
noxious vapors from the paper-mills, and he en- 
tered suit to recover damages for the nuisance. 
In the Queen's Bench, before Baron Pollock and a 
jury, quick work was made of this case. The 
plaintiff was awarded heavy damages. But it 
should be stated here that when the defendant's 
counsel asked for a stay of the execution, that 
Baron Pollock granted it, saying that meanwhile 
perhaps the plaintiff will consider whether he had 
not better grow his roses elsewhere. 

I was told that I must surely see London by 
mounting its omnibuses, and riding as far as they 



298 LONDON OMNIBUSES. 

went in any direction I happened to find them 
going. I did not do this to the extent I had been 
advised for two reasons, — one was, they moved so 
very slowly that I had not the patience to wait 
the movements of their great three-abreast, over- 
worked horses, and so often walked ahead of them ; 
the other was, that in the spring of the year, the 
season that found me in London, I could not 
mount to an outside seat in my walking suit with- 
out suffering from the cold, while to ride inside, 
in these close coaches, was the perfection of dis- 
comfort from the want of ventilation and opportu- 
nities to see the street sights. Still, I rode on 
them, and observed them sufficiently to become 
well acquainted with them. The vehicles them- 
selves are more heavily built than our own, and 
the horses larger and more powerful. The drivers 
and conductors are a shrewd, sharp set of fellows 
well up in all the slang and tricks of London 
street life, and full to overflowing with the chaff 
of the sauciest and most broadly witty character, 
which comes out freely in their frequent encounters 
with street life. " Talking back," when they stir 
up a cabman, or other driver, is an accomplishment 
they seem to be proud of. 

The drivers are paid well for London. They 
work seven days in a week, receiving a hundred 
pounds (five hundred dollars) a year. I take the 
story of one driver as a fair illustration of a Lon- 



LONDON GUILDS. 299 

don omnibus-driver's life : His route, seven and 
one-half miles long ; to run his single omnibus, 
eight horses required. Eight days out of eleven 
these horses make their sixty-five miles. The 'bus 
and driver make sixty miles a day seven days in 
a week. The driver finds his own clothes, gloves, 
etc., and his whip. A good whip costs him about 
two dollars, and soon wears out. He is liable for 
one-third of the costs of his blamable accidents. 
They are poorly off in the matter of holidays ; but 
their occupation is a healthy one, and I found that 
many had driven a good many years without having 
a sick day. 

To be a good omnibus-driver in the thronged 
streets of London requires great skill. If you 
doubt it, ride on the seat with them, and watch 
with breathless trepidation on your part the work 
that is required of them in order to navigate in 
safety through the packed streets of the heart of 
London. 

* 
LONDON GUILDS. 



These number about ninety, have a member- 
ship made up of 10,000 " freemen," 7,319 "livery- 
. iinen," and 1,500 making up what are termed the 
"courts" or governing body. It is exceedingly 
hard for an American to understand just what these 
guilds and liverymen are, they are so entirely unlike 



300 LONDON GUILDS. 

any thing we have in this country. And well they 
may be, for they had their origin so long ago that 
they had a history in the thirteenth century, and 
were based at the start upon a feudal conception 
of society. They have passed through many 
changes, but have never been reformed. Like the 
House of Lords, they are just about the same as 
they were five hundred years ago. Consequently, 
like the House of Lords, they are entirely out of 
sympathy with modern England, and, like the 
House of Lords, will have to bend or go under. 
These guilds are, in a word, incorporated municipal 
committees of trade and manufactures. 

The names of the leading guilds are Mercers, 
Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Skin- 
ners, Merchant Taylors, Haberdashers, Salters, 
Ironmongers, Vintners, Clothworkers. They have 
property which gives them an income of eight 
hundred thousand pounds a year. Vast sums have, 
from time to time, been bequeathed to them in 
trust for special charities. Out of their income, 
which is not under orders from these ancient 
trusts, they have about four hundred and twenty- 
five thousand pounds, which they expend in this 
way : One hundred thousand pounds for elaborate 
dinners for themselves, one hundred and seventy- 
five thousand pounds for what they term mainten- 
ance of their organization, and one hundred and 
fifty thousand pounds which they spend in benevo- 



LONDON GUILDS. 30 1 

lence. The disproportionally small expenditure 
for charity has gradually made them a scandal in 
the eyes of many thoughtful Londoners, and Par- 
liament is pressed to take them in hand and inves- 
tigate and right them, as Parliament did with the 
Oxford and Cambridge foundations. 

There is little doubt that in a short time these 
rusty old closely co-operating guilds will have to 
show their hand, use their enormous incomes as 
they ought to be used, and gracefully yield some 
of the absurd old rights and privileges given to 
them by a feudal age. Few things about them 
seem more absurd than the names they bear, when 
one takes into account their wealth, their costly 
entertainments and generally high pretensions ; 
for it must be borne in mind that these monopo- 
lizing proprietors of some of the finest real estate 
in London still call themselves fishmongers, skin- 
ners, salters, clothworkers, etc. The London 
Fruiterers' Company has for its arms the tree of 
Paradise, environed with the serpent between 
Adam and Eve ; and for their motto, " Dcus dat 
incrementum." And one of their curious customs 
is to present to the Lord Mayor of London, every 
year, an assortment of all the choice fruits in 
their season; and, in return, the Lord Mayor gives 
the fruiterers an annual dinner. 

It does seem to me that the men and women of 



302 NOBLE LIVES. 

England's higher classes are more given to works 
of charity, philanthropy, and the labor of improv- 
ing the general condition of those below them in 
the social scale than are their similarly situated 
brothers and sisters on this side of the water. 
Some English writer has said that the difference 
between an English nobleman of large estate and 
a working man, as far as the point of daily hard 
labor is concerned, is that the former is obliged, 
by a sense of duty, and a due regard to the respon- 
sibilities of his position, to work harder than the 
man who is simply laboring because he feels 
obliged to do so in order to support himself and 
his family. 

Without doubt some of the greatest workers 
in the United Kingdom are men in the highest 
social position, who give nights as well as days to 
wearing labors for the improvement of the masses 
of England. Among the many modes of work 
common with this class, and which have been 
made more or less familiar to social reformers in 
America, I recall two of rather a novel character 
which might well be copied here. 

In London, ladies and gentlemen belonging to 
the nobility and gentry make a special point of 
using their finest accomplishments in furnishing 
amusements, — entertainments for the poor. They 
have instituted concerts, readings, dramatic enter- 
tainments, and so forth, where all the performances 



GUILDS OF GOOD LIFE. 303 

are given by these high-class amateurs, and where 
the charge for admission is merely nominal. It 
can easily be believed that these entertainments 
are some of the finest that can be furnished. 
Even the household of the Queen lends a frequent 
hand here. 

In illustration of the general habit of the better 
portion of the best classes of both sexes to do gra- 
tuitous and noble work among the lowly is the 
practice I have observed in England of young ladies 
of refinement and culture giving themselves enthu- 
siastically to the work of instructing classes of 
poor children in the accomplishments they them- 
selves possess, such as painting and drawing, 
music, and various other high and useful branches 
of education. This is certainly an English notion 
that we might here copy with advantage. 

Some of London's great scientists and social 
reformers are organizing what they term " Guilds 
of Good Life," for the good of working men and 
women. These are societies which propose to 
hold regular meetings for the purpose of present- 
ing lecturers and engaging in discussions upon 
such topics as : The Care of the Young, or How 
to bring up Healthy Children ; Health and Happi- 
ness ; Cleanliness, or Wash and be Clean ; De- 
scription of a Healthy House and Home ; Food 
and Feeding ; Drink and Drinking. 

* 



304 LAW COURTS. 

Among the most interesting and most curious 
places I visited in England were her law courts. 
I saw various kinds of them under full blast. 
Judges, juries, lawyers, spectators, made up an 
amusing and most novel study for me. The most 
of my readers have seen the trial of Mr. Pickwick 
on the American stage, either behind the foot- 
lights of the theatre, or as presented in a less elab- 
orate style on the amateur boards. They have 
laughed over the scenes of such presentations ; 
and have, very likely, like myself, supposed them 
broad caricatures of the real thing seen in an Eng- 
lish court-room. But I do assure my reader that 
the " real thing," as I saw it in English court- 
rooms, seemed funnier to me than Dickens's so- 
called travesty. I did not, of course, hear English 
lawyers arguing in the chops-and-tomato-sauce 
style, nor English judges making points after the 
manner of the judge in the Pickwick case. But 
judge and jury, lawyers and spectators, all carried 
themselves in the genuine Pickwickian style ; and 
I could hardly divest myself of the idea that I was 
witnessing a trial scene in a comedy, instead of a 
suit in actual progress in a real English court- 
room. 

The judge wore a big wig and a voluminous 
gown, and flourished a long quill pen with which 
he rapidly noted down the testimony given before 
him. He could write fast ; yet, ever and anon, he 



LAW COURTS. 305 

would ejaculate, "Stay, stay!" to the voluble wit- 
ness, who was swamping him with words. Then, 
as the witness stayed, and allowed the judge to 
overtake him, the judge would balmily say, "Now 
proceed, and tell us what you did or said next." 
The lawyers were prompt, spicy, learned and 
"sassy ; " and, when the judge would remonstrate, 
would say, " M'lud ! " smile serenely, and go on 
sinning as before. 

The jury, the culprits on trial, and the audience 
that watched the proceedings, each had features 
which made a study of interest for me, — features 
purely English in their characteristics. The term 
"lawyer" is used in England, as it is with us, to 
denote a class engaged upon the law. But there 
are, in England, sub-divisions of the legal profes- 
sion which are entirely unlike any thing known 
here. The old term " attorney," coming from the 
Latin attornatiis, one who takes the place, or turn, 
of another, is applied in England to those lawyers 
who act for clients in studying up and putting 
their law cases in shape for action. 

The attorney in England does not go into court 
and make pleas. This latter work is done by bar- 
risters. The term "barrister" comes from bar. 
They advocate and plead at the bar. In old times, 
the name was spelt barraster ; and at one time 
their English title was "apprentices of the law." 
These barristers, as I saw them in action in the 



306 law courts. 

English courts, presented the traditional stagey 
appearance in their gowns, wigs and bands, — a 
plain stuff gown and a short wig. In English 
parlance these barristers are termed "utter barris- 
ters," or "junior counsel." Next above them come 
the sergeants-at-law, who are distinguished by the 
coif ; and, when in forensic dress, a violet colored 
robe and a scarlet hood. The barrister gets his 
commission from the Crown. It sets him apart 
from and above the plain barristers. Next above 
the sergeants-at-law come the Queen's counsel. 
These are selected from both the lower grades of 
the profession. They are the leaders of the bar, 
having peculiar privileges and rights of precedence 
which it would be tedious to detail. These wear 
silk gowns and full buttoned wigs. 

The poor-box of the English courts is a great 
institution, and it would be a good thing if we had 
something of the sort here. Its use is to aid peo- 
ple whom the law has oppressed ; and the judges, 
who in the English courts interfere in trials in a 
way that would never be tolerated here, seem to 
take a deal of pleasure in drawing on this poor- 
box in aid of prisoners whose situation has ex- 
cited their sympathy. Two little incidents of 
court-room life will illustrate this : A poor ser- 
vant girl who had been summoned from a distant 
part of the kingdom to give her testimony in a 



HUMANE COURTS. 307 

case, and who had paid her own railway fares and 
the expenses attendant upon her detention as a 
witness, found that there was no money coming 
from the court to reimburse her, since the person 
under arrest against whom she had testified had 
not been convicted, but was discharged as not 
guilty. The judge was indignant over the situa- 
tion in which the poor girl was left by the work- 
ings of law and red tape, and ordered twelve 
shillings and sixpence, the amount justly due her, 
to be paid out of the poor-box. 
* A poor woman was brought into court for not 
sending her son to school, having been arrested 
under the compulsory education act. On looking 
into her case, the judge discovered that she was a 
very destitute widow, and that she put her son at 
some work, when the law required him to be in 
school, in order to save them both from starvation. 
When these facts leaked out in the course of 
the trial, the kind-hearted judge growled over the 
case, and excitedly asked the officer making the 
arrest why he had not told him all this before ; 
and he not only gave her money out of the poor- 
box to meet the fine which the law forced him to 
levy on the woman, but he gave her more money 
from the same box to relieve her destitution. 

The money in this court-room poor-box comes 
from the voluntary contributions of generous peo- 
ple who fully recognize its usefulness, and from 
deposits in it of unclaimed witness-fees. 



308 PRICE OF LAND IN ENGLAND. 



WHAT LAND SELLS FOR IN ENGLAND. 

I found it somewhat hard to get at an answer 
to this question, as I wandered about in town and 
country in England. If I asked it of a laborer 
upon the land, as I would often do as I leaned 
upon the wall by the roadside, and talked with 
him as he rested upon his hoe, he would invariably 
reply that its value was, say, five pounds, or four 
pounds, or something in that vicinity, where the 
land referred to was of the finest quality, and near 
to some great business or manufacturing centre, 
or materially less where it was poorer, and less 
favorably situated. 

I soon discovered that these figures simply re- 
ferred to the leasable price of the land, and not to 
its freehold value. These poor workers, who had 
never owned a rood of land, and whose fathers 
and grandfathers had been just as landless, had, 
in all probability, no idea at all of the salable price 
of the fields and plantations about them. Once 
in a while, to be sure, the great estates upon 
which they and their ancestors had been laboring 
for generations changed hands. But such sales 
were great business operations, negotiated, likely 
enough, through London lawyers and land agents, 
with which they would have no acquaintance, and 
could not understand, if they had heard about 



ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS AN ACRE. 309 

them. Still, I managed to get at a few interesting 
points in these premises by extending my inves- 
tigations in other directions. 

Land in old England is cheaper in the heart and 
suburbs of her large cities than in corresponding 
situations in New England and New York. For 
instrnce, I found in " larger London," twelve miles 
from the Bank of England, one of the finest 
estates in England, consisting of nineteen hun- 
dred acres, with excellent home buildings upon 
the same, — an estate consisting of a splendid 
park, vast plantations of oak, beech, larch, fir, etc., 
and good farms, — which was offered to me at a 
thousand dollars an acre, — $1,900,000. There 
were, on every side, most perfect and exceedingly 
cheap steam connections with London "city." 

Land relatively so situated in the suburbs of 
Boston and New York is often held at twenty- 
five cents a foot, or $10,000 an acre. I heard of a 
sale of forty-eight acres of land on the borders of 
Herts and Middlesex, near London on the north, 
for ,£23,000, — $ 1 1 5,000. 

I always made it a practice, in my wanderings 
about the United Kingdom and the Continent, 
to visit, very early in the morning, the fish and 
meat markets, and the flower, fruit and vegetable 
markets, of the cities and large towns in which I 
might be lingering. To make such excursions 



310 BILLINGSGATE MARKET. 

nearly always required of me a very long walk 
before breakfast ; but this was amply compensated 
for by the lively, novel and instructive sights fur- 
nished by these early trips. 

But the most novel and interesting of the mar- 
ket sights I met with in Europe came under my 
notice in the great fish-markets of London and 
Liverpool, where a large share of several branches 
of the trade was entirely in the hands of some of 
the most vigorous women of business I have ever 
seen. The Billingsgate Fish-Market of London, 
named after one of the ancient great water-gates 
of the city, and which covers about an acre of 
land, was a surprise to me, for I had entered it 
expecting to hear some of the "lingo" which had 
made the name of the market a synonyme for 
blackguardism the world over, but I heard nothing 
of the sort. A trade of the most lively character 
was at high tide at 5.30 a.m., when I walked into 
Billingsgate, for it was the hour given over to the 
wholesale traffic ; and a trade of a still more active 
description was going on, as I walked out of the 
great fish-mart at about eight o'clock, when the 
market was given over to the retailers. This 
market opens daily at 5 a.m., Sundays excepted, 
summer and winter. 

The London fish-markets receive in a year one 
hundred and fifty thousand tons of salt-water fish, 
— a supply which gives about a quarter of a 



AVERSION TO FISH. 311 

pound a day for each of its inhabitants. The 
London supply of fresh-water fish is quite limited, 
and should be, since the rivers of England are 
mainly sewers. Yet, after all, the English, as 
compared with Americans, are very light fish 
eaters. This is the universal testimony of those 
who have travelled in both countries, and is con- 
firmed by statistics. I found fish but little in use 
on such tables of London as came under my ob- 
servation, and it was the general testimony of 
Englishmen with whom I talked on this subject 
that the laboring classes of England would seldom 
eat fish if they could get beef or mutton. The 
English are inclined to consume more meat than 
Americans, and they look upon fish as a light and 
unsubstantial diet. 

I was never weary of sauntering through the 
London streets, and looking in the shop-windows 
upon the endless variety of wares there exposed for 
sale. It is quite a peculiarity of the city stores, 
that those of very contracted interiors, and quite 
limited supply of shelf goods, will manage to flare 
out with a show in their windows of an astonish- 
ing brilliancy, only to be equalled by the poverty 
of display within. 

I have sometimes entered one of these preten- 
tious fronts to find within a shop so small, that the 
ambitious keeper seemed to have hardly room to 



312 SECOND-HAND SHOPS. 

turn himself round therein, and very small space 
to dispose of his stock in trade. If the shop win- 
dows in the thronged and brilliant streets devoted 
to mighty London's immense fashionable retail 
trade presented studies of marvellous richness 
and enchanting beauty, the stores in the narrow 
and dingy streets of the lower portions of London 
interested me by their window shows of an equally 
novel though less pretentious character. 

I found streets crowded with shops for the sale 
of second-hand goods, where would be displayed 
in their windows, or projected in stands upon the 
sidewalk, tremendous stocks of well polished boots 
and shoes with a history, — boots and shoes that 
have certainly been well broken in, if not entirely 
broken up, and long black ranks of the English- 
man's inevitable, indispensable high hat, dignified 
and polished in their decline, and to be had for a 
few shillings apiece, though they often looked as 
if they might have topped out noble lords in their 
earlier days. Second-hand military and naval 
uniforms were also an attractive feature in some 
shops, and their former ownership was often volubly 
expatiated upon by the Hebrew proprietor. 

While wandering: among- the avenues devoted to 
trade in articles that had seen hard service, yet 
had not quite given up hopes of still further use- 
fulness in an humble way, I remember stumbling 
upon a little shop, kept by a pleasant old lady, 



A T STRA TFORD. 3 I 3 

which revelled in a window display of second-hand 

goods of the most unique character, among which 

I noted second-hand false teeth and human skulls, 

both of which articles bore marks of having seen 

hard service. 

The lady offered to sell me a good skull, with a 

pedigree (for she had it labelled with its name and 

outline biography), for ten shillings. I did not 

buy for two reasons, — one, that I did not know 

what the home export duty was on old skulls ; and 

the other, that I could not think of any use to 

which I could put a skull if I did ship it home. 

As for the false teeth, I had no desire to add the 

old grinders to my collection of bric-a-brac. 
* * 

I turned away from venerable Stratford, a town 
without an equal in its attractions for the trav- 
eller from the United States, with deep reluctance ; 
for I was nearing the end of my travels in Europe, 
and might never see the old town again. A few 
miles from the place, in the midst of the most 
charming rural scenery, and near where stands 
the magnificent country home of a great Manches- 
ter cotton lord, I had occasion to call at the house 
1 of a cottager. The laborer was at work in the 
(fields, but his wife received me kindly, and an- 
swered my inquiries most intelligently. Before I 
i turned to leave, her curiosity about me seemed to 
be excited ; and, looking at me over her spectacles 



314 THE NUISANCE FROM STRATFORD. 

in the most kindly manner, she said, " Be you the 
nuisance from Stratford ? For if you be the nui- 
sance from Stratford, I can only say that old Lucy 
is a mean landlord, and won't do a thing about my 
drains ; and if things haint right about my place, 
he is the only one to blame." 

This, and more of the same sort, soon made it 
quite clear that the good woman had been alarmed 
by my call, thinking I was a Stratford health- 
officer, come to inspect and condemn the sanitary 
condition of her house and grounds, which was 
undoubtedly faulty, and the subject of previous 
complaint. A tenant upon the estate of the 
Lucy's, she had, I doubt not, a good opportunity 
of understanding the character of the present rep- 
resentative of that family. But very likely she let 
her feelings run away with her when, in talking 
upon the conflicts she was having with Lucy on 
the matter of rent and repairs, she was even more 
severe upon him than was Mr. William Shakes- 
peare upon the Lucy of the old time in his lousy 
Lucy squib. 

* 
Sir Joseph Paxton, made a knight by Victoria 

in recognition of his work at Chatsworth, Syden- 
ham, and elsewhere, sleeps at Edensor in the lovely 
little church-yard that overlooks the Duke of Dev- 
onshire's model village of Endensor and his mag- 
nificent Chatsworth estate. After a long walk 



SIR JOSEPH PAX TON. 3 I 5 

across country, among the peaks of Derbyshire, 
along the banks of the Derwent, and over the 
grounds of noble Chatsworth, I turned aside and 
sought for the newly made grave of the latest 
member of the Devonshire family, who had been 
laid at rest in the family burial place under the 
shadows of Endensor Church, — Lord Frederick 
Cavendish, the Phoenix Park victim. 

While searching for his grave, I came upon the 
grave of the sixth Duke of Devonshire's head 
gardener, the yeoman's son, Joseph Paxton. A 
very simple monument with a simple inscription 
marks the spot. But earls, dukes and lords who 
lie buried around him have just as simple memo- 
rials above them. Yet the head gardener of 
Chatsworth and the builder of the Crystal Palace 
of Sydenham, upon whose beautiful proportions I 
had so recently been gazing with so much interest 
and admiration, has little need of a monument, — 

"Needs but a simple tomb-stone with birth and death carved 
neatly 
And no hollow sounding praises of him whose work is past. 
His monument is elsewhere — in the Chatsworth gardens stately, 
In the far-off Crystal Palace where the world looked on him last." 

Lord Beaconsficld once said that the lowliest 
born boy in England might, if he had talents and 
persistency, rise to the highest position but one. 
But, after all, very few boys in England do get 
out of the plough-ruts in which they were born. 



316 SIR JOSEPH PAX TON. 

Generation after generation they plod along in the 
same tracks of lowly labor, accepting their humble 
status in life as an inheritance from which there 
is no delivery except at the grave. 

Joseph Paxton was born in 1803, and was buried 
in 1865 on this hillside upon which I was stand- 
ing. In his comparatively short lifetime he did a 
work and won a fame which proved to the world 
that, even in England, the son of a serf of the soil 
might win the right to sit among the noblest in 
the land. He was but a gardener ; and all about 
me the flowers and trees he had planted and 
watered were blossoming and putting forth their 
spring-time leaves, while the artificial waterfalls 
and fountains he had planned were sparkling like 
silver in the morning air. Yet he had sat for ten 
years in Parliament, and had written volumes upon 
horticulture, architecture, and landscape-gardening 
which had become standard authorities in England 
and the United States. 

He was but a gardener, and I was looking down 
upon the gardener's house, at the gate of the 
stately Chatsworth, which had been his home. 
Yet the name of the gardener of the Duke of 
Devonshire's show place in Derbyshire has over- 
shadowed that of his master. 

I have said I saw the gardener's house in which 
Sir Joseph Paxton lived at Chatsworth. I ought 
to add that the noble duke treated his brilliant 



GENERAL USE OF BEER. 317 

gardener most generously, for the house at the 
gate where the gardener lived had conservatories, 
stables and gardens of its own, and was, perhaps, 
as fine a place as I have ever seen in the States 
occupied as the home of a gentleman. England 
excels all other lands in the beauty of its land- 
scape-gardening. For hundreds of years workers 
in this department, like Uvedale Price, and others 
whose names are familiar to students in this 
sphere of labor, have toiled with hand and brain 
upon the homes and public parks of England with 
such magnificent success that travellers from all 
lands who ramble, as I have rambled, through 
lovely England in the spring-time of the year, turn 
from it with but one expression on their lips, — the 
declaration that this little island is the garden of 
the world. 

I had always heard of the enormous consump- 
tion of beer and ale in England, but the half had 
not been told me. When I say that everybody 
drinks beer in England, I do not make a statement 
of precise accuracy, but I come very near it. 
Said an Englishman to us, just as we were sailing 
for England, " Be sure, all of you, to learn to love 
good honest English beer, and to drink largely of 
it, before you come back." He could not think 
of any more judicious and more friendly parting 
advice to give us. 



3 1 8 BEER-SHOPS. 

The consumption of beer by the laboring classes 
of England is perfectly enormous, and is not upon 
the decrease, as statistics show. 

In 1 83 1 the annual " drink bill" of England 
was estimated at about seventy millions sterling ; 
in 1 88 1 it reached one hundred and twenty mil- 
lions. In 1 83 1 the average sum spent by the 
English citizen for intoxicating drinks was about 
three pounds; in 1881 it was four pounds. In 
1 83 1 there were, in England and Wales, fifty thou- 
sand licenses for the sale of spirits; now there are 
one hundred and fifty thousand. Then there was 
one license for every two hundred and sixty per- 
sons ; now, one for every one hundred and seventy. 
In 1 88 1 174,481 persons were arrested for being 
drunk, or drunk and disorderly, — an increase of 
one hundred per cent on the figures of i860. 

I am fully convinced, by personal observation, 
and by the testimony of others, that drunkenness 
is on the increase in Scotland. I happened to 
notice, while travelling in Scotland, that Scotch 
whiskey and other fiery drinks were as openly and 
freely sold in the stations on the railroads as soda 
and lemonade are sold in similar places in the 
United States. 

English statisticians say there are only sixty 
thousand licensed drinking places in England. It 
seems to me they must be wrong in their esti- 
mates. I talked this matter over a good deal in 



BEER-DRINKING. 



319 



England, and with intelligent Englishmen on the 
steamer in which I returned from Europe, and 
also looked into the subject for myself, and I came 
to the conclusion that there were in rural England 
alone just three million beer-shops. They line all 
the highways, and I seldom found any by-way so 
narrow and secluded as not to demand a beer- 
shop. Beer, beer, everywhere! There is one 
verse of old English literature that the traveller 
in England is sure to get by heart, for it seems to 
be written on about every other door-post in rural 
England. It is this : " Licensed to sell beer at 
retail to be drunk on the premises." 

The common language of the street of any 
country is apt to be quite direct. This, which I 
have never seen in print, is a common yet rather 
grim saying among beer-drinking workmen : 
" Bread is the staff of life, but beer is life itself ; 
give me the beer." Beer is the bane of the Brit- 
I ish workmen. Many fully realize this. Said one 
of them to me, jumping from his seat where he 
sat sixteen hours a day : "Write it down, and don't 
you forget ; and don't soften it at all. Beer is the 
English laborer's greatest curse." 

There are, I found, two kinds of temperance 
reformers in England; one class preaching mod- 
eration in the use of beer, etc., the other contend- 
ing for total abstinence, — teetotalism. In the 
county of Herts, I stopped to talk with a farmer, 



320 BEER IN MODERATION! 

who was cutting down his tall, handsome hay-rick, 
and loading the hay for the London market. He 
was a lively, progressive sort of a man, who had 
been an emigrant to Australia, and after long resi- 
dence there had again returned to the home-farm ; 
and, like many others who had lived years away 
from England, he had returned with many broad 
ideas in his mind. 

Speaking with him of the bad beer-drinking 
habits of the English laborers, he said the great 
trouble was they would not use the beer in mod- 
eration. A moderate use of beer he thought 
might be beneficial to them. I asked him to tell 
me what was his idea of moderation in this regard. 
He replied that, in haying-time, which is a period 
when the farm-hand is expected to work unusually 
hard, a laboring man ought to be able to get along 
on a gallon of beer a day ! 

If the men would put up with about that quan- 
tity, beer would not hurt them. These very 
astonishing " temperance" views I afterwards 
heard advanced by other quite intelligent English 
farmers. 

The wages of an agricultural laborer in England 
range from thirteen to eighteen shillings a week. 
I gave this matter of wages a good deal of atten- 
tion, and found that the best farm-laborers gener- 
ally received but fifteen shillings a week, boarding 
themselves, and supporting families. Out of these 



DAILY COST OF BEER. 321 

fifteen shillings the laborer, who hardly ever owns 
a foot of land or any sort of a tenement, pays two 
shillings and twopence a week rent ; and for 
beer, which is an injury to him, he pays, as a gen- 
eral thing, more than he pays for rent. Beer is a 
comparatively expensive article, even in England. 
A half-pint pot of beer costs, in the cheapest pot- 
house, a penny, or two cents ; a quart pot, eight 
cents. The temperance man who said the farm- 
laborer ought to be content with a gallon of beer 
a day, in haying, would therefore set aside thirty- 
two cents a day for the haymaker's beer. 

I found that many English laborers seemed to 
live almost entirely on beer. A very little bread 
and a large amount of beer seemed to make up 
their daily sustenance. I remember seeing an 
English laborer, who had himself abandoned its 
use, holding up before me a very small loaf of 
bread, — a loaf about the size of a coffee-cup, — and 
exclaiming, " See this ! One of our hard workers 
will make a day's food out of this if you will give 
him beer enough to go with it." I used frequently 
to see these beer-drinkers sitting in the tap-rooms 
at all times of the day, but they swarmed into 
these places at night. It is often the custom for 
a little clique of British workmen to sit down 
around the plain, pine table in the beer-house, and 
begin the evening by ordering a quart pewter pot 
of beer between them. They pass this around 



322 BEER-HOUSE REGULATIONS. 

from mouth to mouth, with a " drink, mate," chat- 
ting the while. When the mug is exhausted, it is, 
" Here, Missus, another pot of beer ; " and so they 
keep it up till the evening is over. 

There are some very curious laws in England 
for the regulation of their beer-houses and inns. 
One of these peculiar laws relates to their Sunday 
management. It provides that they must be closed 
on Sunday except between 12.30 or 1 p.m. and 2.30 
or 3 p.m., and between 6 and 10 or 11 p.m. Local 
authorities have power to vary these regulations a 
little. A set time for opening and closing is also 
prescribed for secular days. But travellers and 
lodgers are, as a general thing, exempt from these 
rules. 

I note here an explanation of the use of terms 
which I had at first a difficulty in understanding in 
England. A beer-house is a place simply licensed 
to sell beer ; an ale-house is a place where all sorts 
of intoxicating liquors are sold. The term " pub- 
lic," or "public house," is generally applied to the 
ale-house. Public houses which are in readiness 
to entertain travellers with bed and board, beer, 
etc., included, are in England, as with us, termed 
inns, hotels, or taverns. 

The use of the word " public," as applied to an 
ale or beer-house, at first led me into several mis- 
takes in England. For instance, when, early in 
my rambles in England, I asked regarding the ac- 



ENGLISH WOMEN AT THE BAR. 323 

commodations on the road before me, I supposed 
inns or taverns were referred to if I was told there 
were several publics in the village or hamlet I was 
approaching; and so I often came to them expect- 
ing an opportunity to get a supper or a night's 
lodging. I soon found, to my disappointment, 
that, as I have before mentioned, a public in Eng- 
land meant nothing more than a beer-shop. 

All England employs women to keep its hotels, 
and to retail its beer. Wherever I travelled, in 
city or country, I found women, generally young 
women, standing ready to receive me if I entered 
an inn, and, in the inns, serving as clerks, book- 
keepers, and bar-tenders. I heard general regret 
expressed by thoughtful English people that the 
business of tending in tap-rooms had been so uni- 
versally delegated to the young women of England. 
It was by them rightly deemed most unfortunate 
that girls should be obliged to serve in positions 
where they must, of necessity, be brought in con- 
tact with rough men in their roughest moods, and 
be compelled to listen to all sorts of low chaff and 
conversation from men who were not to be frowned 
upon, because they paid well for the beer upon 
which the profits of the house so largely depended. 
I have seen, in a local English paper, a significant 
communication from a lady, who signed herself, 
"A soldier's sister," which said, among other 
things, " that women will never meet with proper 



324 ENGLISH WOMEN AT THE BAR. 

respect in England while they continue to serve 
out drink to any man who calls for it." The poor 
girls who are expected to appear to enjoy all the 
inane drivel which any fool or fop may address 
them across a pewter counter, are as much to be 
commiserated as any portion of the community. 

As a class, the English girls who serve as bar- 
maids, particularly those who are to be found in 
the rural portions of England, are neat in their 
appearance, quiet and intelligent in their conver- 
sation, and self-respectful in their deportment. 
Many of them are really attractive and capable. 
I remember meeting, at a little inn in an old 
market town near Oxford, a young lady who was 
the only representative of that house that I saw 
while staying for an early breakfast, who was 
graceful and beautiful, dignified and " competent 
to keep a hotel ; " yet she was working for wages 
far less than we pay our servant girls, and seemed 
to be ready to do all work, from making out my 
bill to drawing a pot of beer for any "chaw-bacon" 
who might summon her. 

I was at some pains to get at the following au- 
thentic statement of methods of beer adulteration. 
A member of London's committee on sewers — an 
eminent scientist — puts forth the declaration that 
" It is well known that the publicans, almost with- 
out exception, reduce their liquors with water after 
they are received from the brewer. The propor- 



beer adulteration: 325 

tion in which this is added to the beer at the 
better class of houses is nine gallons per puncheon, 
and in second-rate establishments the quantity of 
water is doubled. This must be compensated for 
by the addition of ingredients which give the 
appearance of strength, and a mixture is openly 
sold for the purpose. The composition of it varies 
in different cases, for each expert has his own 
particular nostrum. The chief ingredients, how- 
ever, are a saccharine body, as foots and licorice 
to sweeten it ; a bitter principle, as gentian, 
quassia, sumach, and terra japonica, to give astrin- 
gency ; a thickening material, as linseed, to give 
body ; a coloring matter, as burnt sugar, to darken 
it ; cocculus indicus, to give a false strength ; and 
common salt, capsicum, copperas, and Dantzic 
spruce, to produce a head, as well as to impart 
certain refinements of flavor. In the case of ale, 
its apparent strength is restored with bitters and 
sugar-candy." 

One of the means taken by them to secure the 
purity of the national beverage has been the organ- 
ization and equipment of a powerful society known 
as the Anti-Beer Adulteration Society, an institu- 
tion often heard of in Parliament and on the gen- 
eral platform. Beer from hops, and nothing but 
hops, is the war-cry of this society ; and it wages 
a sharp war upon the sugar-beer makers, and all 
other " tamperers " with the so-called national 



326 " MARKE T MERR Y. " 

hop-drink. But it is a curious fact, that few are 
aware of, that the time was in England, and that 
not so very long ago, when it was deemed quite 
an outrage for any beer-maker to introduce into 
his "good beere " that noxious weed the hop, 
which was sure to be the "spoyling" of it. 

I noticed that drinking of beer in inordinate 
quantities seemed to have different effects upon 
different English beer-drinkers. Some would show 
their intoxication by unseemly and excessive mer- 
riment, — a "market merry," as they term it in 
England ; or, the beer had the effect of making 
the drinker unnaturally talkative and hilarious. 
More are, however, made excessively heavy and 
stupid by much beer-drinking. In English coun- 
try taverns I have seen workmen sit and drink 
beer by the hour, until they had drugged them- 
selves into a well-nigh unconscious state. Some, 
under the influence of beer, will become perfect 
raving maniacs, often so full of fight as to be with 
difficulty controllable. I found many Englishmen 
who were firm in the idea that such effects as I 
have described as coming from beer came mainly 
from drinking poor beer. They said good beer — 
beer made by the most reputable makers — would 
not have such bad effects. 

I doubt not beer in England varies very much 
in intoxicating qualities, and in what may be 
termed general quality, or "merit." It is claimed 



A UNIVERSAL BEVERAGE. S 2 7 

that in small beer there is only one per cent of 
alcohol ; in ale and porter for home use, about six 
per cent ; in East India pale ale, ten per cent ; in 
beer which is made in England for shipment to the 
United States, which is often termed " dry beer," 
ten per cent of alcohol. 

I have had occasion to allude so frequently to 
the beer-drinking habits of the laboring classes, 
that there is danger of my conveying the impres- 
sion that the consumption of beer is mainly con- 
fined to these classes. On the contrary, it seemed 
to me that beer was a universal household bever- 
age in England. In many families it was on the 
table at lunch, dinner and supper. Its house- 
hold use is shown in the advertisements of ser- 
vants, and places for servants wanted, in London 
papers. In " The London Times " now before 
me, I find many of these significant notices. 

Advertiser wants plain cook, offering twenty 
pounds a year, all found but beer. This means 
that board, including tea, coffee and sugar, will be 
supplied, but not beer. If the cook wishes beer, 
she must buy it. Tea, coffee, sugar and beer are 
generally considered, in English households, as 
luxuries, as far as the help are concerned, and are 
not supplied, unless "all found" is named as part 
of the contract. Here is another advertisement 
of parlor-maid wanted, wages sixteen pounds and 
all found ; another of house-maid wanted, Church 



328 BEER MONEY. 

of England, wages twenty pounds, all found but 
beer ; another of a coachman who wants a place, 
married, no family, abstainer — a teetotaler; but 
he will be sure to want the money in lieu of the 
beer usually supplied. Every person doing work 
for you in England seems to have an eye on that 
beer perquisite. A Londoner is having his coal 
put in. The man bringing the sacks is an ab- 
stainer, yet he asks for the beer money. In the 
rural districts, I found this practice of giving beer 
money in lieu of beer was followed by many farm- 
ers who were themselves abstainers. Yet some 
of these teetotal employers expressed their be- 
lief that farmers who furnished a liberal supply 
of beer to their laborers got more work out of 
their men than they did, — got more work for 
their beer than they did for their money. Some 
farmers supply their workers with malt at about 
four shillings the bushel, and let them brew their 
own beer at haysel and harvest. This home- 
brewed ale is cheap, mild, and, in the opinion of 
most Englishmen, very refreshing and wholesome. 
It takes a very large quantity of this cottage- 
brewed beer to intoxicate ; therefore, some argue 
that its use conduces to temperance. 

In my wanderings in England I was seldom 
where beer was not a much more accessible bever- 
age than good drinking-water. But accustomed 
as I was to the well-nigh universal beer-drinking 



STUMP ORATORY. 329 

habits of the kingdom, I hardly expected to find it 
flowing directly into a place of worship of the 
Established Church. Yet, at Hampton Lucy, in 
Warwickshire, the rector "runs" the only public 
house in the village, and actually pays the salary 
of his organist out of the profits of the tap-room. 
There is a deal of talk in England at the present 
time about adulterations of beer, but the rector 
in question guarantees his to be pure. 

England's parliamentary and other orators gen- 
erally " take a hall " when they go on the stump 
for the purpose of addressing a constituency. 
England is a great place for large halls. I saw an 
audience of five thousand persons crammed into 
Exeter Hall, London, when Lord Shaftesbury was 
to preside at an anniversary meeting of the Young 
Men's Christian Associations of England. In all 
the large towns and cities of England, halls hold- 
ing three or four thousand are common. St. An- 
drew's Hall in Edinburgh accommodates an audi- 
ence of four thousand. On the rostrum, with so 
great an audience before him, the political orator 
of the times has a very trying position. The 
largest latitude is allowed those who are supposed 
to listen, and that meeting is a dull and tame one 
which does not bring out a good quantity of wordy 
and witty combats between the speaker and his 
audience. The widest latitude is allowed in the 



330 " TALKING BACK." 

matter of interruption ; and nobody is " put out," 
either literally or figuratively, until the limits of 
decency are overstepped by some fool or "half 
jolly" man (to use a Lancashire expression), and 
then the police step in and turn out the offenders 
in double-quick time. It is quite the thing for a 
candidate to formally announce himself ready to 
answer all questions, making this announcement 
after he has made his opening harangue, and then 
standing, as it were, with folded arms, to receive 
the hot shot from a promiscuous audience, which 
has been requested to "fire away." 

Little encouragement is needed to induce them 
to "talk back." All, from Hodge the laborer, 
and Tim the "chaw-bacon " in the smock frock, to 
the tenant farmer, the street preacher or labor re- 
former, " want to know, you know," all sorts of 
things, from the speaker's views on the question 
of marrying a deceased wife's sister, to his senti- 
ments on great Church and State matters, and 
whether or no he did on a certain occasion speak 
or vote in a certain manner ; and if not, why not, 
etc. 

* 
Before starting for Europe, I fell in with a friend 

who had just returned from a tour in England in 

company with his brother, one of the most able 

and prominent citizens of New England. I said 

to him, " You must have received great profit and 



LOST IN LONDON. 33 1 

pleasure from having had in London the advan- 
tage of the company of a distinguished American 
who was sure to be known and to receive a good 
deal of attention abroad." My friend smiled at 
my remarks ; and, being a frank, honest man, he 
said that my ideas showed that I did not know 
much about London ; for, said he, we were at 
once lost in that immense city. Two or three 
professional friends gave my brother some little 
attention ; but, with that exception, we were per- 
mitted to wander about England as unknown and 
as unnoticed as the humblest travellers. 

We read in our own newspapers a deal of gos- 
sip relative to American travellers and American 
colonies in London and Paris, but what sort of 
an impression does one imagine that the com- 
paratively few travellers from the United States 
make upon that city of five million inhabitants, 
with a tide of travel from the Continent, which 
I have heard estimated as high as sixty thou- 
sand a day, pouring through its thronged thor- 
oughfares. For a reply, reverse the picture, and 
tell me how much of an impression on New 
York all the pleasure tourists from the whole of 
Europe make upon that city at any given time. 
Any thoughtful man, who has been abroad, will 
tell you that the most significant lesson there 
learned was that which taught him how little of 
a ripple he was born to make on the great surface 



332 THE SOLITUDE OF THE SEA. 

. of existing life. The loneliness, the isolation, the 
loss of individuality one experiences when he wan- 
ders as a stranger through the teeming thorough- 
fares of London, is what I have experienced, but 
am incapable of fitly picturing. 

In connection with this matter, there comes to 
mind the recollection of an idea that used to crop 
out in the old-fashioned Fourth-of-July oratory. 
When the orator came to speak of the wonderful 
growth of the commerce of the Christian world, 
he might be depended upon to say that " its sails 
whitened every sea." Now I have sailed for many 
days in the great lanes of the commerce of the 
seas without meeting a sail, and have known 
friends who have voyaged from Boston harbor to 
the equator without seeing a ship. Every ocean 
traveller is impressed with the solitude of the sea. 
And this figure about ships whitening the ocean 
is just as false as many ideas that prevail regard- 

. ing the impress of American travel on the old 

world. 

* * 
* 

In the course of my rambles in rural England, 
I one day became lost when striking out upon 
some specially planned route across country, and 
wandered on over cross-roads and through green 
lanes, and even over private fields and on by-paths 
for three-fourths of a day without really " getting 
ahead " a mile. I made no unfortunate mistake, 



TURNING TOWARDS HOME. 333 

for I saw many a rural scene which comes to me 
now, as I write, like the memory of a delightful 
dream, — views of halls and parks, lawns and 
farms, hedges and green pastures, which I should 
not have seen that day had I not been lost, and 
which, as likely as not, were nobler and sweeter 
than those I should have seen had I gone straight 
ahead. It sometimes takes a stranger in a country 
to find out and appreciate its real beauty. 

While staying at the inn at Edensor, right under 
the shadow of Chatsworth, I climbed a beautiful 
hill near by, from whose top I obtained such inde- 
scribably lovely views of England's finest estate, 
and the romantic fields, forests, waters and peaks 
of Derbyshire, amid which Chatsworth stands, 
that I had to tell my new-found friends in the 
inn, who had always lived in the town in which 
Chatsworth is located, all about the magnificent 
prospect I had obtained. To my surprise, they 
said they had never been on that hill, though 
they had often thought of visiting it, and had 
always imagined there must be a fine view up 
there. 

The last inquiring the way I did in England 
was to inquire the way home. I often regretted 
that there was only one way to get there, and 
that a way across the stormy, ice-clad North 
Atlantic. Particularly was it ice-clad at the time 
I was turning my face homeward, for the cable 



334 THOUGHTS OF HOME. 

was daily bringing me reports of how the ocean 
liners were being wedged in and blocked by ice- 
bergs and ice-floes. And when, away in the heart 
of England and Scotland, I would go to rest at 
some little inn among strangers, my mind would 
often pensively turn, as I sought sleep, to thoughts 
of home and children three thousand miles across 
the water ; and I would fall to wishing that there 
was a way to walk home, for I seemed to feel that 
that would be the only safe and sure way of get- 
ting there. 



THE END, 



INDEX, 



Adam Smith, ideas of, expressed by an artisan, 68. 

Advertisements, curious specimens of, 237-239, 327. 

Agriculture the leading English interest, 37 . 

Agricultural laborer, ignorance of, 7 8; shoes of, 127, 128- wages 
of, 320. s 

American oak used in English car-building, 85. 

Ancient law precedents, 295. 

Ancient rights of way, 13-15. (See Knole Park.) 

Apprentices, hardships of, 67-69. 

Apprentice laws, injustice of, 67, 68. 

Army, discontent in, 236; perpetual drilling in, 236. 

Arnold, Matthew, a school inspector, 225. 

Arrival book, use of, in London banks, 187, 188. 

Articled pupils, 239. 

Artisans out of work, talks with, 65. 

Artisans, travelling expenses of, 24. 

Athletics at Oxford, rage for, 126. 

Attorney, English application of term, 305. 

Bachelor Fellows, nature of, as a class, 27 ; travelling and living 
expenses of, 27. & 

Bank dividends, specimen figures of, 202, 203. 

Bankers, courtesy of, 182, 183; English bankers men of cultiva- 
tion, 183; not as conservative as supposed, 197-199. 

Banking terms, unfamiliar nature of English, 184. 



336 INDEX. 

Bank of England, assorting-room of, 162 ; chief accountant in, 
159, 177; coin-tester, 165, 166; date of charter, 176; deposits, 
200; directors' meeting of, 166-169, 171, 172; debate at 
meeting, 169, 171, 172; directors' room, arrangements of, 
166; employes' arrival, 175; employes' vacations, 176; em- 
ployes' residence, 176; extent and situation of, 158; hours 
for business, 175; holidays of, 176; lunch-room, 160, 161; 
notes of, their aggregate circulation, 161 ; their cancellation, 
162; their manufacture, 161 ; original capital of, 176; origi- 
nal projector of, 176; physician employed, 176; rigid rule 
of, 174; rotunda of, 160; salaries, 172, 176; specie reserves, 
163, 164; weighing machine, 165; yearly election, 173. 

Bank president, term not used in England, 185. 

Bank's "rest," a, explanation of term, 203. 

Bankruptcies, 206. 

Bar-maids, great numbers of, 323, 324 ; intelligent appearance of, 

3 2 4- 

Barristers formerly known as apprentices of the law, 305. 

Beaconsfield, national adoration of, 269-271 ; primrose worn in 
memory of, 269-271 ; visits to grave of, 270. 

Bee-keeping, common in England, 75; novel practice in, 76. 

Beer, adulteration of, 324, 325; effects of, upon consumers, 326; 
great amount consumed by laborers, 318-322,326, 327; or- 
ganist's salary paid from sale of, 329 ; statistics concern- 
ing consumption of, 318; universal use of, 317, 319, 327, 
328. 

Bees, beer fed to, with boiled sugar, 77. 

Betterment laws, none in England, 295, 296. 

Bluecoat Boys, costume of, 277, 278 ; Easter visit of, to the Lord 
Mayor, 278 ; number of, 277. 

Bread, character of loaves of, 272, 274; chief food of laborers, 
273; commonly sent to public bakeries to be baked, 273. 

Brick-setter, a, 116. 

Brigstock, oppression of its inhabitants by landed proprietors, 3. 

British Bee-keepers' Association, exhibition of, 76. 

Broad arrow, the, 129, 130. 

Canals, very numerous in England, 72 5 number of miles of, 74. 



index. 337 

Canal-boats, ignorance of persons employed upon, 73 ; number 

of, 73 ; registration of, j$. 
Carlisle, hiring fair at, 119-121. 
Carriage horses, " park action" of, 229, 230. 
Cash credits, of Scotch origin, 186; popular in Scotland, 186. 
Caste in trades, 69. 
Chancery case, a singular, 292. 
Charing Cross Deposit Bank, 201. 

Chartered accountants, duties of, 191 ; institute of, 191, 192. 
Chatsworth, gardens at, 316; Sir Joseph Paxton's work at, 316. 

(See Paxton.) 
Cheshire, length and breadth of, 101 ; cheese production of, 102; 

salt mines in, 102. (See Nantwich.) 
Chimes, great numbers of, in England, 97. 
Chiming-matches, 97. 
Church tithes, incidents relating to, 282; praedial, mixed, and 

personal, 281. 
Coal, consumption of, in London in 1882, 60; dealers in, obliged 

to carry weighing apparatus, 65 ; sack delivery of, 64, 65. 
Cocoa-rooms, great numbers of, 25; bill at cocoa-room at Walt- 
ham Cross, 25, 26. (See Walt ham Cross.) 
Coffins, American, not liked in England, 89 ; elm wood generally 

used in making, 87 ; wicker, 92-94. 
Commission merchants, dependence upon brokers, 213, 214. 
Composition foods for cattle much used by English farmers, 44. 
Consols, explanation of term, 192; interest on, when payable, 193; 

popularity of, 194, 195. 
Co-operation, success of, 275. 
Co-operative Wholesale Society, number of stores belonging to, 

275- 
County agricultural shows, popularity of, 45 ; times of holding, 45. 
Cow-keeper an unfamiliar term, 116. 
Cowslip wine, supposed virtues of, 235. 
Cruelty to children, testimony regarding, 81. 

Directors' bank examinations, an incident of, 205, 206. 
Directors for the week, an English bank custom, 185, 204; once 
a common American custom, 204. 



333 INDEX. 

Donkeys, ill treatment of, 113, 114. 

Dorchester, age and condition of grammar schools in, 224. 

Draught-horses, great size of, 227. 

Drunkenness in Scotland, increase of, 318. 

Durham Cathedral, curious facts from registers of, 115, 116. 

Economical travelling, 27. (See Bachelor Fellows?) 

Electric light, use of, in noblemen's residences, 262. 

Elihu Burritt, singular portrait of, 6, 7 ; little gained from his 
book, 7. 

England, pedestrianism in, 7-9; rivers, polluted character of, 123; 
spring climate of, 1 ; villages, absolute quiet of many, 3 ; 
" Without and Within," a pleasant volume, not a guide- 
book, 6. 

English boys, physique of, 8, 9. 

Erasures not allowed in English banks, 187. 

Farming machinery much used in, 39 ; thoroughness of, in Eng- 
land, 41-43. 

Fiction much read in manufacturing towns, 142, 143. 

Fidelity insurance a general bond giver, 260. 

Filtration, 124. 

Financial report, summary of a, 197. 

Fire-insurance companies: Alliance, 258; Hand in Hand, 258; 
London Assurance, 258; Westminster, 258; competition in, 
259; wide extent of business, 258, 259. 

Fires, increasing number of, 153. (See London Fire-Department.) 

Fish, English use of, less than the American, 311. 

Fishing in the Wye, 16, 17 ; incident relating to, 16, 17. 

Flint, abundance of, in England, 122. 

Flint-lock guns still made in Birmingham, 122. 

Flowers, abundance of, in England, 266; customs concerning, 
268-271 (see Beaconsfield); trade in, 266-268, 270. 

Forests, growth of, in Scotland, 83 ; growth of, in India, 83 ; 
small amount of, in Ireland, 83. 

Forestry, great attention paid to, 81, 82. 

Fox-hunting, opposition of farmers to, 283; principal argument 
in favor of, 284 ; relation of railways to, 283. 

u Fresh Coup Eggs," 234. 



index. 339 

Gas, prejudice against, in sleeping-rooms, 261. (See London, Liv- 
erpool, Manchester.) 

Goose-clubs, object of, 133. 

Guide-posts, peculiar kind of, 9, 10. 

Guilds of Good Life, scope of, 303. 

Grain, duty on, devoted to purchase of public parks, 84, 146. 

Ground rents, 243, 244. 

Gypsies, baptisms among, 17, 18; often met with in the country, 
17 ; weddings among, 18, 19. 

Haddon Hall, morning walk to, 15. 

Hay usually stacked in the fields, 44 ; " spice " used upon, 44. 
Hens in a restaurant, 234. 
Hides, importation into England, 70, 71. 
Home, thoughts of, 334. 

Horses' tails, banging, 228; docking, 228; nicking, 228. 
Hospital Saturday, contributions, how collected, 148. 
Hospital Sunday, collections taken in churches, 149. 
House-boats, numbers of, 287 ; opposition to, 287 ; use of, 286, 
287. 

Imbecile asylums, great size of, 79 ; very large one at Watford, 

79. (See Watford.) 
Individual rights carefully guarded in England, 296, 297 ; incident 

relating to, 297. 
Inns, description of, 21, 22; numbers of, in the country, 21. 
Inquiring the way, incident concerning, 20. 
Insurance boards, titled members of, 155-157; value of services 

performed by such members, 155-157. 
Intensive farming, application of term, 43 ; comparison of, with 

" extensive farming," 43 ; illustration of, 43. 
Interest, occasional high rates offered, 201. 

Jews' Free School, largest school in the world, 278; number of 
pupils, 279. 

Jews, numbers of, in London, 279 ; prominent promoters of edu- 
cation, 279. 

Jockeys, characteristics of, 225, 226; minimum weight of, 227. 



34-0 INDEX. 

Joint-stock banks, none in England, except Bank of England, 
over fifty years old, 185. 

Kenilworth, tan yards at, 70. 
Knole Park, right of way in, 14, 15. 

Land, selling price difficult to ascertain, 308. 

Lath-render, material used by, 117; meaning of term, 117. 

Law courts, amusing features of, 304, 305. 

Letters of credit, collections upon, 311; signatures, 311. 

Leyton, present disposition of its sewage, 257; situation, 257. 

Lich-gate, origin of term, 94; sometimes shut against dissenters, 

94, 95- 

Limed eggs, importation into America, 234. 

Limited Liability Act, date of, 186; provision of, 186. 

Liverpool : gas rates, 262 ; great number of dwellings unfit for 
habitation, 285; new homes for laboring classes, 286; port 
charges, 109; rapid increase of population, 286. 

London : ashes and soot collected and disposed of, 280, 281 ; 
Bankers' Institute, location of, 211 ; range of discussion, 212, 
213; churches, small congregations in, 98, 99; Clearing House, 
business hours of, 188; location of, 188; regulations respect- 
ing country checks, 188, 189; climate warmer than that of the 
country, 145; co-operative stores, location of, 275; popularity 
of, 275; corps of commissionaires, by whom founded, 266; 
popularity of, 265, 266; trustworthiness, 265; East End, deg- 
radation of, 147 ; " hell without the fire," 147 ; enormous in- 
crease of population, alarm concerning, 144; suggestions in 
regard to, 144; Fire Department, fire towers, 154; effective 
organization, 153; gas companies, financial strength, 261 
number of, 261 ; rates, 261 ; generosity, illustrations of, 147- 
150; guilds, expenditures, 300; motto and arms of Fruiterers' 
301 ; income, 300; names of leading, 300; number and mem 
bership, 299; hospitals, support of, 149, 150; omnibuses, slow 
movement of, 298 ; omnibus drivers, life of, 299 ; long hours 
299; payment of, 298; poor children, birth rate in White 
chapel, 285; death rate, 285; depravity, 284; garden parties 
for, 285 ; rent and wages table, 286 ; retail shops, 276, 277 



INDEX. 341 

sewage, plan for disposition, 256 ; shop clerks' holidays, 277 ; 

slight impression made by American tourists, 331, 332; steady 
. growth, 143; Stock Exchange, Rule 56, 203; streets, annual 

number of miles added, 143; cleanliness, 253; how paved, 

253, 254; miles of pavement, 253; street "slippers," duties, 

255, 256; transit in business portions, 146; yearly number 

of houses built, 154. 
London and Northwestern Railway, best trains, 29 ; block system, 

30; length, 29; number of employes, 29; tunnels, 32. 
London and Westminster Bank, origin of, 207. (See Over stone.) 
Lord's Day Observance Society, activity of, 100; advertisement 

of, 101. 

Manchester, gas rates, 262; hospitals, 106, 107; population, 105; 

prominent industries, 105 ; proposed ship canal from, to the 

sea, no; water supply, whence derived, ^ 34. 
Maps, excellence of English, 19, 20. 
Market terms, unfamiliar nature of, 45, 46. 
Married women, bank accounts with, not opened except by consent 

of husband, 187. 
Messingham, calling a congregation in, 97, 98. 
Middleborough, abundance of iron near, 103 ; rapid growth, 103 ; 

steel rails made at, 104. 
Milk, adulteration of, 50, 51 ; incident relating to, 50, 51 ; wooden 

vessels for holding, 49. 
Miners, their prejudice against American pick-handles, 86. 
Mines, boys in, 56 ; heat unendurable below four thousand feet, 

60; horses in, 57, 58; rapid descent into, 58; shifts, extent 

of, 57; women laborers not now allowed in, 56. 
Mole-catcher, death of a, 133. 
Mole-catching, occupation of, 134, 135. 
Moss litter, great use of in British army, 45. 

Nantwich, salt mines at, 102. 

National schools, attended by children of poorer classes, 216, 217 ; 
church opposition to, 215, 216; compulsory attendance, 217; 
corporal punishment in, 224; lunches provided, 221 ; number 
of pupils, 216; number of pupils in national church schools, 



342 INDEX. 

216; school-fees, amount of, 217-219; opposition to, 217, 218; 
scholarships, 225; teachers' salaries, 220. 

Newcastle, Springman of, 117, 118; "Thirty days hath Septem- 
ber " written in, 1 18. 

Newspapers, cheapness of, 249, 250; generally read, 250, 251; 
objectionable character of some, 249-251. 

Oats, large crops of, 45. 

Osier, ancient use of, 93, 94 ; cutting and preparation of, 91 ; use 
of in coffin making, 92-94. 

Osier-holts, 90. 

Out-tellers, duties of, 184, 185. 

Overstone, Lord, a leading financial authority, 208; his confidence 
in hard money, 209; his religious belief, 208, 209; lessons 
drawn from life of, 210. (See London and Westminster Bank.) 

Paxton, Sir Joseph, grave of, 314-316; home of, 316; labors of, 

3IS.3I6. 
"Peculiar People," customs of, 240, 241; founder of, 240; mode 

of worship, 240; treatment of disease, 240, 241; troubles of, 

241. 
Philanthropy, higher classes much given to, 302, 303. 
Physicians, charges to laboring classes, 248, 249; charges to 

higher classes, 249. 
Pigeon-flying, common in North of England, 54; description of, 

55- 

Pineapples, grown in tanbark, 53 ; perfection of, 53. 

Political orators questioned by audiences, 329, 330. 

Polytechnic Young Men's Christian Institute, founder of, 152; 
membership, 151 ; wide scope of, 151, 152. 

Poor-box, a feature in English courts, 306 ; incidents relating to, 
306, 307. 

Primroses, abundance of, 272; badge of Toryism, 269, 270; favor- 
ite flower of Beaconsfield, 269. (See Beaconsjield.) 

Public halls very common in English cities and towns, 329. 

Public libraries, great numbers of, 142. 

Queen's counsel, costume of, 306; rights and privileges of, 329. 



index. 343 

Queen's Remembrancer, duties of, 294; proclamations of, 294, 
295- 

Racing, clerical opposition to, at Leeds, 233 ; not universally ap- 
proved by Englishmen, 232, 233. 

Railways, employes a fee-taking class, 34, 35 ; orders of merit for, 
35; social position of, 34; frequency of tunnels, 30-32; 
sleepers usually of larch, 28; solid nature of road beds, 27, 
28. 

Red brick a popular building material, 136, 137. 

Roman Catholic schools, number of pupils in, 216. 

Roman roads, 2. 

Round-houses, described, II, 12; story concerning, 13; use of, 12. 

Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, benefits 
exerted by, 113. 

Rural schools, extreme plainness of, 223; over-crowded and 
poorly ventilated, 222. 

Safe deposit company, but one in London, 179. (See Special de- 
posits.) 

Saw-pits, 86. 

St. Paul's Cathedral, choristers in, 289; clubs connected with, 
289; congregations, 288, 290; lectures, 289; services, 288. 

Scripture readers, anniversary meetings of, 98 ; dress of, 98. 

Sea, solitude of, 332. 

Second-hand shops, contents of, 312; teeth for sale in, 313. 

Seed farm, a great, 40. 

" See London, or die a fool," 67. 

Sermons, proposed abolition, 290; topics, 291. 

Servant-hiring fairs, terms at, 120; time of, 11 9-1 21. (See 
Carlisle.) 

Sheep, kept in London parks, 46, 47; number of in United King- 
dom in 1882, 46; pens for, in Scotland, 47, 48; washings, 47. 

Sheffield, manufactures of, 108; razors, 109; Red-Book, 108; sup- 
posed properties of its water, 107. 

Shoemaking not considered a high-caste trade, 69. 

Sir Walter Scott, funeral procession of, 5, 6. 

Slippery pavements, use of gravel on, 254, 255. 



344 INDEX. 

Smudgers, a local term, 138. 

Society for Preservation of Open Spaces, aided by act of Parlia- 
ment, 84; work of, 84, 85. 

Special deposits, 177-182. (See Strong room) 

Stable feed, 23. 

Steeple-jack, explanation of term, 95; mode of working, 95, 96. 

Stone roofing, 139. 

Stone stable floors, 22. 

Stoves little used in rural England, 138. 

Strawberries, large size of, 51; served with sugar and lemon, 52; 
wild variety, 52, 53. 

Stratford, amusing incident at, 314; famous for its beer, 75. 

Street music, abundance of, in English towns, 244; opposition to, 

245- 
Street-retiring houses, use of, 252, 253. 
Street "slippers," duties of, 255, 256. 
Strolling players, exhibitions by, 79, 80; numbers of, 79. 
Strong room, 180-182; responsibilities connected with, 178, 179. 
Sunday cricket club, a, 99. 

Tanning and tanneries, 70-72. (See Kenilworth) 

Telegraph, great use made of in banking, 190; number of offices 
in the United Kingdom, 263; sixpenny rate demanded, 263; 
unobtrusive style of poles, 264; vast number of wires in 
London, 264, 265. 

"Thirty Days hath September," author of, 118. (See Newcastle.) 

Thatching, rye straw used for, 141. 

Three per cent, a popular rate of interest, 192, 194 ; current say- 
ings regarding, 194. 

Ticket-of-leave system, Australian origin of, 130. 

Universal Knowledge Society, scope of, 246. 

Urban population, preponderance over suburban, 153. 

Vaccination, opposition to, 242, 243. 
Ventilation, great attention paid to, 139. 

Walker, independence of, 2. 



index. 345 

Waltham Cross, cocoa-rooms at, 25; pronunciation of, 25. 

Watch-clubs, workings of, 131, 132. 

Water little used for drinking in England, 125. 

Water-cress, great use of, 235. 

Watford, imbecile asylum at, 79. 

Watling Street, 2. 

Weights, curious table of, 135, 136. 

Wesleyan schools, number of pupils in, 216. 

Wheat, average production for nineteen years, 38; limit of culti- 
vation, 37. 

White glove, a curious legal custom, 293. 

Wide horse stalls, 23. 

Women, as laborers in Scotland, 248 ; lack of ambition in Doulton 
pottery employes, 247 ; new opportunities for employment of, 
246. 

Wool centre, London the greatest in the world, 49. 

Wooden houses not common in England, 136. 

Worcester, court opening ceremonies at, 294. 

Yellow a conservative color, 271. (See Beaconsfield) 
York Minster, experience in, 112; special annual service held in, 
110-112; view from roof, III. 



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